CVL Bakes - Another fab order!

Hello again,

So, I had an order today and it was a fab one at that! I do love to see baked goods in abundance. These are really fresh and vibrant desserts/ bakes.

There is something really comforting and satisfying about seeing cake and smelling it. Not in a creepy 'I have a fetish with smelling cake' way though. In a seeing something that you've made and looking at the effort you've put into it kind of way. What was once some meaningless ingredients to something magical and delicious.

I made three desserts. They were;

- 1 Key Lime Pie

- 1 Coffee and Walnut cake with coffee buttercream and a walnut sprinkle

- 1 Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and chocolate ganache

These are great cakes, as a) they serve a lot of people, so are cost effective. b) they are delicious, seriously, if you haven't has ganache before, you haven't lived and need to try it. c) they are a pleasure to make!

I'll start with the Key Lime,


Key Lime Pie;

Now, I've heard that key limes are quite the hard little commodity to get a hold of. So any old lime will work, personally they don't taste much different to me. They all have the same zingy, fresh taste to them.

A little background information, as I was watching a news report on them today... or was that a dream??? Anyway, and found it interesting. Although, if you aren't interested, scroll by, I won't be offended.

'Key lime pie is an American dessert made of Key lime juice, egg yolks, and sweetened condensed milk in a pie crust.The traditional Conch version uses the egg whites to make a meringue topping. The dish is named after the small Key limes that are naturalized throughout the Florida Keys'

(https://www.google.co.uk/#q=why+is+key+lime+pie+called+key+lime)

I really enjoyed making this as it was a new experience and was exciting. It's an American dessert and had heard of it before, but had never tried it. I found a really good recipe though and enjoyed making it. It is almost like making a cheesecake meets a tart.

The equipment that you will need;

- A food processor or a zip lock bag and rolling pin
- Baking tray
- Pie dish, or tart tin
- Whisk
- Can opener
- Spatula
- Piping bag or just dollop on the meringue

The ingredients you'll need;

- 300g Digestive Biscuits, or whatever biscuits you want
- 150g Butter, melted

This is for the biscuit base, all buttery and delicious. You want to blitz the biscuits until they form fine crumbs and add the butter. Mix this with a spatula until the butter is mixed in and the crumbs are coated in buttery goodness.

Once the crumb biscuit base is done, press down on the tart tin or pie dish. Butter the dish so the crumb base will come away easily, when portioning it out. Press down with your hand, or a spatula which is what I used. Start at the middle and then push the crumbs up the sides and the even out on the center.

Bake in the oven, that is preheated for 140 degrees C for 10 - 15 minutes, or until it is set, and a darker golden brown colour.

- 3 Egg yolks, whisked until they are light and fluffy.
- 397g of Condensed Milk, this is the measurement that is sold in the cans, making it easy
- 4 Limes, juice and zest

Put the egg yolks into a mixer and whisk until light and fluffy. You want to get as much air into this mixture as possible. Add the condensed milk, use the spatula to get all the condensed milk out. Whisk this until it is fully combined and light and fluffy.

Slowly add the lime juice and zest as adding it too quickly could cause the mixture to split. So mixing it in slowly will stop this.

Pour this into the cooled digestive biscuit base and put back into the oven for 15 minutes to set the eggs.

Once set, take out of the oven and leave to cool before putting on the meringue.

To make the Italian meringue;

- Put two egg whites into a bowl and whisk until they are stiff peaks.

- Whilst the eggs are whisking, put 4 oz caster sugar into a pot with 2 tbsp of water and heat to form a sugar syrup. Do this until it bubbles up and has a syrupy texture and consistency.

- When the egg whites are stiff, add the sugar syrup slowly. Pour it along the side of the bowl, as you don't want to shock the eggs with this intense heat. Whisk the eggs until they form stiff stiff peaks and are pure white and glossy.

- Pipe this onto the pie topping and put back into the oven at 140 degrees until the meringue is set and browned on the top. Then grate some lime zest on top and refrigerate overnight to let it set completely.

Coffee and Walnut cake with Coffee Buttercream and walnut sprinkles;

You will need;

- Baking paper
- 2  x 22cm Cake tins
- Mixer
- Scales
- Spatula

To me coffee and walnut cake seems like an old reliable bake and one that never goes out of style or fashion. It's not only delicious, like any cake, but it has a new and exciting texture combination. The walnuts give a satisfying crunch to each and every bite- yum! This makes it more interesting to eat, anything that has varied textures and tastes is going to be more enjoyable to eat. If you have something that is all one texture and tastes the same, well that is going to be boring to eat. You might as well chew on some cardboard.

Ingredients:

- 220g Butter
- 220g Caster Sugar

- 4 Eggs
- 220g Self Raising Flour
- A good helping of coffee powder


You want to weigh out the ingredients, this will mean that you can fling and chuck to your heart's content and not have to pause your flinging tendencies for weighing out the next stage.

Line and butter two 20cm cake tins.

Put the butter into the mixer and mix until softened and light and fluffy. Add in the sugar and now you want to give it a good mix. Really bash it and mix it to get as much air in as possible. I don't really think you can over mix at this stage, so get that anger and tension out and make an amazing cake from it. See- putting your tensions to good use. What's better for de-stressing, than eating some cake!? I ask you that.

Once the butter and sugar are creamed, add in the eggs and mix until combined, before chucking in some flour, well not some, chuck in the right amount, don't go flinging in willy nilly. If you do that, goodness knows what you'll end up with.

Add in the flour, and at this stage don't over mix. But especially for this one, as you'll be mixing in the coffee, so you don't want to mix it so much, finishing off the batter and then over mix when adding in the coffee. Mix until the batter just comes together, or a little before that even.

Mix a little water with a lot of coffee. I'm not going to give an amount as we are all different. Some of us are the bold, strong hand shakers of the coffee world, and like it so strong, we strangle your hand. That's me.

Some of us are the limp hand shakers, we don't like to go in too strong and end up bringing nothing to the table. If this is you, you have a plain cake. I'm sorry, but if you don't like a strong coffee cake, it isn't coffee cake. It is like that act going on stage last that nobody wants to hear, because there is a reason they leave it to last. If it isn't strong, it isn't coffee cake. It is but a plain cake, featuring coffee... although why a flavour should only feature in a cake is beyond me. It should take the stage and make itself known- own it.

Then there's the in between hand shakers- where you go in pep talking yourself, saying 'this is gonna be great!' Go in strong. Make an impression. Then all of a sudden, you feel like you are squishing their hand too much and regret everything, suddenly and abruptly taking away all pressure and leaving them with a weird encounter.

Is this a hand shake or a hand brush? Slowly dying in the other person's hand and not leaving any taste or impression.

Anyway, add the coffee paste and finish off mixing the batter. Portion out into the two cake tins and bake in the oven at 170 C for around 25 minutes or until risen, golden brown and springs back to the touch. Also when a skewer comes out clean.

Take the cakes out of the oven and immediately flip onto a cooling rack and peel back the baking paper. Leave them to cool completely and chill until they need to be iced.

To make the icing, plop some butter into a food processor and mix until it is softened. Add in some icing sugar gradually, little by little until the buttery taste has gone away from the buttercream. Add some coffee and whisk until fully combined.

Pipe onto the first half of the cake and even out so the cake won't appear lop sided. Sprinkle on chopped walnuts and press down slightly to stick them in. Then with a star tipped nozzle, pipe on the rest of the icing onto the top piece of the cake and place it on top of the bottom piece. Sprinkle with another bunch of walnuts in whatever way you want and yay- you're done!

Serve. Thanks and enjoy!

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream and Ganache;

I love this cake as it is rich, buttery and chocolaty, oh so chocolaty. What you need for the cake is;

Ingredients:

- 220g Butter
- 220g Caster Sugar

- 4 Eggs
- 220g Self Raising Flour
- 300g Dark Chocolate
- 300g Double cream
- 1 knob Butter

You want to make the ganache first. Making it first ensures that it has time to thicken up slightly and this means you won't have to use as much. This means you'll have more left over to garnish the cake with.

To make the ganache, put the cream into a pot and heat to just before boiling point. When this is reached, bung in the chocolate and mix like you've never mixed before. I mean it- get your jive on and shake that tail feather. Get into it, this could become a new exercise. You won't loose weight, as you are eating the buttery, creamy, chocolate, but you are having fun making it.

Once this is made, leave aside and allow to set slightly.

To make the cake itself,

You know what, this will save me typing and you reading. Just do exactly the same for here, as you did for the coffee and walnut cake. Except, don't add coffee, add chocolate, as in the ganache- but only some of it. You need some for decoration.

Bake for 25 minutes or so, until it is cooked through and risen and fluffy looking. Take out when it is cooked and leave to cool on a cooling rack... you know what to do, you read the previous instructions on how to do it.

Make the buttercream in the same way, again without coffee, but using chocolate instead.

Ice the cake in the same way and then drizzle the ganache on top and over the cake. YUM!

Now this one is done as well! Yummy!


That is it! Enjoy!

Ciara

CVL Bakes Caters for a Dinner Party

Good afternoon All!

On Sunday I catered for a dinner party. This was such a lovely experience as it was all my own food. Not in the sense that I was cooking them food that I bought for myself, I'm not mad. I love my food too much to share it. No, this was food I'd bought for the job obviously.

This was lovely as I spent the morning cooking it all, as it couldn't be made any later than on the day and then I delivered it all and served it. This was lovely as it was really hands-on and I was able to talk to a bunch of really lovely people and serve them food that I though was delicious and homely.

The menu was;

- Parma Ham and Melon Nibbles to start.

- Chicken with mashed potatoes, peas and cauliflower.

- Salmon with couscous and soured cream and chive dip.

- To finish, Pavlova with whipped cream, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries.

This dinner was for 8 people and I loved seeing all that food, sitting there on the table, begging to be eaten. And eaten it was! It was a lovely day and I really enjoyed it and hope the people I made it for did too?

I am now going to list through the following recipes on how to make the dishes listed above.

- Parma Ham and Melon Nibbles to start.

This is so much a recipe as it is a natural combination. It is too damn simple to be classified as a recipe, so natural combination is what I have come to. It is really yummy. The saltiness of the parma ham compliments the sweetness of the melon and they work so very well. Talk about mouth watering.

What you will need;

- 2 Melons, peeled and cubed
- 1 pack of Parma Ham
- Some cocktail sticks

What you want to do;

Colour coded knife and board, specifically for fruit :D You've gotta enjoy the little things

- Basically it is pretty simple, what you need to do is cut the melons in half and then cut those halves in half. You want to scoop out the seeds and stuff and then chop the quarters into slices, then cubes and boom, the melon is done!

- Wrap the melon in parma ham around the melon and secure it with a cocktail stick and then you are done! Honestly they are so good.

- Chicken with mashed potatoes, peas and cauliflower.

Action shot of me taking the temperatures of the chicken.

- For the chicken you want to put the chicken breasts into a frying pan with a little rapeseed oil and butter. Cook until one side has gone this deep, golden colour. Once it has, sprinkle on some garlic granules to give them flavour and flip over to cook on the other side. This shouldn't take too long. Cook until the chicken is cooked through, or above 63 degrees C. Once cooked, leave to sit on a plate and cool down if not using immediately and pop into the fridge. 

- Peel and chop the potatoes and plop them into some cold water with a little salt. This will clean them and get rid of any soil or stuff that grows around the potatoes in the ground. Then put them into boiling water and power boil until they are cooked through. Once they are cooked, drain and mash them. This is what I call pre-mash mashing. This is where I mash the most part out of them, and then finish them off with some salt, pepper and milk. Then whisk the potatoes; getting rid of all the lumps and making them smooth and silky.

- For the peas and cauliflower, there is no shame in using frozen. I use it. It is cheaper, faster and already prepared. What is best about it though, is that you can chuck it back in the freezer if you don't use all of it; making it more economical and handy.

- Chuck them into some boiling water. They'll only need around 10 minutes, I like them when they are cooked, but still have a bit to them and aren't just like mush.

- Salmon with couscous and soured cream and chive dip.

Cooling process

- For the salmon, you want to poach it. Put boiling water and a little white wine into a deep pot and heat. Put in the salmon fillets and cook until flaky and cooked through. This will take around 25 minutes or so. You'll know it is cooked when it goes from an orange/pink colour, is over 63 degrees C and is, well a salmon colour. Then take this out of the pot and set aside if not eating immediately and put into the fridge. You could garnish this with slices of lemon to compliment the couscous as well.

Okay, so this is a terrible photo, bit I uploaded it so you could see how I make the couscous. I let it sit and steam with a little clingfilm over it to trap in the heat.

- For the couscous, put the dried couscous granules into a bowl, pour over a little amount of boiling water and leave to sit. Mix with a fork and if it doesn't look fluffy, it needs more water. Keep adding little by little, you can always add more, but if you add too much, you're screwed. It'll be like eating something soggy and tacky if too much water is added.

- To serve, put the salmon on top of the couscous and top with the soured cream and chive dip. This is lovely. It is light, zingy from the lemon and meaty. Alternatively, you could shred the chicken into the couscous and mix in the dip, this also makes a really lovely, flavorful lunch. It is light on the pallet and isn't heavy, so ideal for a light lunch or nibble.

- To finish, Pavlova with whipped cream, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries.

Pavlova... you've gotta love it! I don't trust people who don't like pavlova, it seems suspicious to me. This is such a great wee dessert! All sweet, crunchy, chewy and fruity. Beautiful! The only thing tricky about making it is making sure to not over-whisk the eggs. If they are over whisked they aren't going to hold their height and that will take away from the appearance of the dessert.

- What you want to do, this is a Delia Smith recipe is put 3 egg whites into a clean bowl and whisk them until they are stiff peaks and only just stiff peaks. Slowly add 6 oz of caster sugar to the eggs when whisking on a low speed. This will gradually stiffen up the egg whites and turn them a very white colour and become opaque.

- Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C. Once the meringue is done, pour it onto a baking tray, lined with baking paper. Then pop into the oven and immediately turn the oven down to 140 C and bake for 1 hour. Once cooked, turn off the oven and leave the pavlova to sit in the residual heat for another hour. This will stabalise the pavlova and set it.

Hand whipped by yours truly. Not too shabby, eh? .... Again, it is the little things in life.

- Whip some cream and plop onto the pavlova. Top with some fruit and then it is done!

And that is all the food done and dusted. I loved these dishes as they were a pleasure to look at and hopefully eat. I didn't eat any though, as it wasn't for me.

Hope you enjoyed reading this and speak again soon hopefully!

Ciara

Get stuck in Iced Biscuits

Good evening all

This is a great little recipe for the kids or anyone who enjoys a good muck around with food. This recipe involves mess, mischief and mucking about in the kitchen.

It is a hands-on, relaxed and fun recipe. The ingredients that you will be wanting to get into the house are;

This is a BBC Good Food Recipe and is plain, so you might want to add lemon or orange zest to it. This will give it more flavour. I liked it though, as I feel with desserts these days, there is so much flavour and various stuff going on in them, that sometimes it is just lovely to have something simple and delicious. The icing is perfect on these though, as it gives that little bit of sweetness that balances it.

Ingredients:

- 100g Butter, room temperature and soft enough to squish
- 100g Caster Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 275g Plain Flour
- 1 tsp Vanilla

Method:

- Chuck the butter and sugar into a bowl and mix until they are combined, light and fluffy.

- Crack the egg into a bowl (this works better in two ways. 1- you won't get any shell into the mix if you accidentally crack it weird. And 2- it helps if you whisk the egg a little before adding it to the sugar/butter mix.

- Add the vanilla and give this a little mix as well.

- Finally chuck in the flour and mix this until it forms a soft dough consistency. This is the stage where you can take the opportunity to get stuck in and squish and squelch the dough around. Have a good muck about with it!

- Wrap the dough in some cling of the film and chill in the fridge for around an hour to cool and firm up a bit.

- Once chilled, roll out the dough to the thickness of a £1 coin and cut out your desired shape.

- Bake these at 190 C in a fan assisted oven for 10 minutes, or until they are golden brown and look baked. If you aren't sure, check the bottom of them, and if they are browned, they are done!

- Take out of the oven and allow to cool and harden on a cooling rack until completely cooled.

Icing:

- Put around 250g of Icing Sugar into a two bowls. (250g in each bowl) and add enough water to make a thick paste, thick enough to hold its shape, but not so thick that it can't be manipulated.

- Add any colours that you want to make them unique to you and your likes.

- Using a piping bag, a chopstick and toothpick, decorate these little biscuits!

And that is it! They are done. Really simple and lovely little treat to have on a quiet and cold evening.

You can add lemon, lime or orange zest to these to make them more special and interesting in terms of flavour and textures. You could even sprinkle them with a little sugar before baking as that would make them a little sweeter. Whatever you want to do, these are diverse and versatile and that is the best thing. You can tailor them to you.

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