Adventures in macarons

We had a cake sale at work today, so I decided to be real fancy and make some more macarons - with varying degrees of success!

These plain ol' vanilla ones were the stars of the show - they were genuinely pretty decent, if I do say so myself.

I tried, unsuccessfully, to make some strawberry ones with freeze-dried strawberry powder, which I was disproportionately excited about. Unfortunately, I think that the mixture was too damp - I got a nice rise, and cute little feet, but they cracked horribly and would not dry out.

The last ones were some chocolate ones. They looked... ok. However, I think I baked every last hint of moisture out of them and they were distinctly, well, hard. Very disappointing. Some very kind people told me they were nice, but I think they were simply trying to spare my feelings!

Moral of the story - let's try and get the plain ones down pat first, ok?

Marvellous Macaons

The macaron bug has bitten again!

I made my first macarons about 2 years ago, baking hundreds of them in the space of a month, then haven't been near them since. I was inspired by an abundance of egg whites, and made some this week. I'd forgotten how much fun they were & I'm already plotting the next batch...

These ones were a plain macaron shell, filled with a lemon and lime curd.

If you want to try your hand at them, the macaron recipe was from BraveTart and the lemon and lime curd was from The Kitchn.

Enjoy!

Flower garden cupcakes

A colleague at work asked me to bake some cupcakes for a friend who was having a baby. I used to do a lot more baking, but I just don't have much time for it any more; however as it was only for 12 cupcakes, I said yes.

My current "go to" cupcake recipe is Hummingbird Bakery's vanilla cupcake. I had avoided getting their book for ages as I had read quite a number of bad reviews on it, but when a friend gave it to me for Christmas, my decision was made for me!

I think the reason why people don't like it is that the recipes' ingredients and methods are a little unconventional. If you don't read the instructions and just make cakes the way you normally would, these will not work properly! I have never had a problem with anything out of their recipe book - everything has worked perfectly (if you do get this book, I heartily recommend the Nutty Apple Loaf).

The reason I like their vanilla cupcake over the many (many) other recipes I have, is that you don't have to cream the butter & sugar together. I know, it's irrational, but I just don't like that part of baking!

The only potential problem with their recipe is that it doesn't make that much cake. It says 12, but I think that's for the more English "fairy cake"-sized confections. If you want the more traditional American muffin-sized cupcakes (and, let's face it, who doesn't want more cake?), the recipe needs to be doubled, or you have to content yourself with 9 or 10 cakes from a batch of batter.

So, this is my interpretation of their recipe, doubled up to make around 18 cupcakes.

Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients

240g plain flour
280g caster sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
80g unsalted butter, at room temperature (not margarine, the taste just isn't the same)
240ml whole milk
2 large, free-range eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C (150C for fan-assisted ovens).
   
2. Line 18-holes of 2 muffin trays with paper cases.
   
3. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl.
   
   
   
4. Add the butter and beat together until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
   
   
   
5. Pour in half the milk and mix until the milk is just incorporated.
   
   
   
6. Add the eggs and vanilla to the remaining milk and beat with a fork until combined. As an aside, I always use Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract. It's a little pricey, but the flavour is great.
   
   
   
7. Pour this gradually into the flour mixture, beating the mixture as you do so.
   
8. Scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times as you are beating the mixture to ensure everything is nicely incorporated.
   
9. Continue mixing for another minute or so until the mixture is smooth - resist the temptation to over-beat, it results in rubbery cakes!
   
   
   
10. Fill the paper cases until they are about (or just under) 2/3 full. This mixture does rise quite a lot, so you don't want to overfill. I always use an ice-cream scoop to fill the cases - it works marvellously!
    
    
    
    
    
    
11. Bake in the over for about 25 minutes or until done.
    
    
    
    
    There are a few ways to test for "doneness":
    - The cakes smell good
    - If  you prod them gently, the sponge should spring back
    - If you insert a skewer into one, it should come out clean with no liquid or crumbs clinging to it
    - The cases should be hugging the cakes tightly and pulling away from the sides of the muffin tins
    
12. Cool the cakes for about 5-10 minutes in the tins, then take them out and put them on a cooling rack to cool completely.

For these ones, I was asked to just top them with buttercream. I always find regular buttercream very sweet, so I decided to spread it on the top rather than pipe it - I thought this would create a better cake to icing ratio! I did guess a bit at the quantities for the icing, but this seemed to work.

Basic buttercream icing

Ingredients

300g icing sugar
120g unsalted butter, softened
A few splashes of whole milk

Method

1. Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl.
   
2. Add the butter.
   
3. Beat together until the mixture looks crumbly.
   
4. Gradually, add a little milk (you don't need much) while beating the sugar mixture. Add enough that the mixture comes smoothly together (it's a little magical).
   
5. Continue beating for about 5 minutes until it's smooth and fluffy. You can add any colourings or flavourings at this stage too.

I made some flowers and leaves from sugar paste to go on top of them.

 Along with a generous helping of edible glitter, they looked quite sweet :)

Butter and sugar & jam, oh my!

I had a bit of a fridge clear out the other week & discovered that I have 4 open jars of jam in the fridge (2 of these are raspberry, not sure why I have 2 open jars of the same variety...). To resolve this jam surplus, I decided to make some little "Jammy Splodgers" from Kate Shirazi's "Cookie Magic". I've made these quite a few times before - they are super easy & taste amazing.

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter, at room temperature (i.e. soft, but not greasy)

140g icing sugar

1sp vanilla extract

1 large egg yolk

375g plain flour

About half a jar of jam, depending on how jammy you prefer your cookies to be (I have been known to use dulce de leche instead, but honestly prefer jam. Use whatever moves you!)

Note: As this is such a simple recipe, it really is worth while using good quality butter & vanilla - you can really taste the difference.

Method

1. Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl. 
2. Add the butter.
3. Cream together until pale and fluffy.
4. Add the vanilla and egg yolk and mix well.
5. Sieve the flour into the bowl and combine together on low speed (or by hand).
6. When the mixture starts to lump together, use your fingers to draw it together into a very soft dough.
7. Wrap your dough in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least an hour.
8. When you're ready, preheat your oven to 190C (170C for fan assisted).
9. Line a few cookie trays with grease proof paper.
10. Knead the dough briefly on a lightly floured surface (I always find it easier to deal with it in two batches.) 
11. Roll out the dough to about 3mm thick.
12. Cut out your chosen shapes and place them on the cookie trays.
    
    
    
13. Bake the cookies for about 11 minutes (9 if you've cut holes out of their middles) until they are starting to brown.
14. Leave the cookies on the tray for a few minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack.
    
    
    
15. Once cool, sandwich them together with some jam - I tend towards the generous side on the basis that no-one ever said "this cookie has too much jam".

Et voilà! Yummy, jammy cookies!