skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Portuguese custard tarts are rich, sweet, vanilla-laden mouthfuls of pure delight. Known in some quarters as "Devils Dainties" or the less imaginative "Coronary Cupcakes", I make them from time to time at work, and they're guaranteed big sellers. The recipe I use differs from most in that the custard is poured straight into the pastry to cook in the oven, rather than being cooked off beforehand. It's also thickened using yolks rather than a starch such as cornflour, resulting in a much richer flavour.
8/7/10 I've added something to the end of this post - read on...
Tired of watching fat cat supermarket owners flying around in Lear jets, paid for by the money you spent on over-priced baking products? Fight the power and stick it to 'the man' by making your own crystallised ginger! Yeah!
I've learnt quite a bit about sponges lately. For a start, a good sponge should be light and airy, moist and with minimal crumb. It should taste sweet, but not overly so, and there should be a complete absence of "eggy" flavour. Once you've got it mastered, expect to become very desirable company - watch that phone run hot when word gets out, with requests like, "Can you make a sponge for me? I've got folks to feed at a birthday/wedding/treaty signing at Versailles - ta!". I like to think that I've finally joined that esteemed group; the one pictured above was my entry in the sponge section of the baking competition at the Waipukurau A & P show (that's Agricultural and Pastoral for you cosmopolitan types) - and it won first prize! It looks a little worse for wear but then it had been sitting out for four hours by the time I took the shot. The sponge was the culmination of three months trialing of various recipes, and my gradual education in the science that is sponge making.
What did I learn? Quite a bit, but one thing in particular stood out: folding is the most important part of the sponge-making process. The egg white mix acts as a leavener, harbouring air in its mass which will give the sponge volume. When folding in the dry ingredients, you want to disturb the whites as little as possible, while also insuring that the dry mix is fully incorporated into it. Using a slotted spoon, scrape around the inside of the bowl, then slice down the middle of the mix to the bottom of the bowl. As you slice through the bottom and work your way back up, you should be picking up up a fair amount of mix. Once at the top, fold the mix you've collected over on the surface. Repeat this action and rotate the bowl as you work, until the ingredients are just mixed. Most of you probably already know all of this, but it's relatively new territory to me - there's nothing like making close to a dozen failed sponges before you start to understand the process.
I made the final cake the day before the competition. On the big day, it was split, sandwiched with strawberry jam and cream (a classic pairing, like Lennon and McCartney, or Smith and Wesson) and then off to the showgrounds at 8:30 am for submission.
Judging started at ten that morning. Half an hour later, they finally make it to my wee sponge. Careful consideration and deliberation ensue...
Yes! The thumbs up!
...or she has cream on her thumb. Whatever the reason, I won - woohoo! According to the judges, my sponge had good structure, was light, springy and airy,. Here's my prize, a fifty dollar voucher to be spent at local antique and collectables store, Piccadilly. Cheers!
The section with the most entrants was the Christmas cakes, with around nine or ten entries. They looked grand, covered in icing and packed full of nuts and fruit. It was a busy morning for the judges, with a lot to sample.
And the sponge recipe?
Never Fail Sponge Cake
4 eggs, separated
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 tbspn custard powder
3/4 cup cornflour
1/2 tspn baking soda1 tspn cream of tartar
Turn oven on to preheat at 165c, and grease a round baking tin. Beat egg whites until stiff. Continue beating while gradually adding sugar. Add egg yolks, beat until well combined. Add triple sifted (from a height) dry ingredients to egg mix and fold using a slotted metal spoon. Bake for 25 minutes (the original recipe said 20 but mine wasn't quite ready at that time, so consider your oven's pernickety temperament when setting a time). Leave in the tin for 5 minutes, then remove and place on a rack to cool.
Below are a few photos of the show. For those of you who don't know, the A & P show is a key feature of life in small town New Zealand. Held in late spring all across the land, the show is a coming together of town and country, allowing townsfolk a glimpse of rural life. Livestock judging, dog trialling, sheep shearing and field ploughing displays are just some of the events that fill the day. All manner of entertainment can be found there too, with carnival games and rides, trade displays, petting zoos and a myriad of vendors selling food. All this, and big tractors too! One of the traditional aspects of the A & P show are the various competitions on offer to those wanting a challenge. Events range from tractor pulling, to dressage and equestrian events, right through to "Best Bantam" and, of particular interest to me, the baking contests.
.
A big thank you to Lorraine (for the recipe is hers) and to Lizzy for their help - much obliged! By the way, click on the link for a couple of alternate sponge recipes plus a brilliant lime, ricotta and strawberry filling - clickclack.
While not possessing the most appealing of names, clotted cream is an important and revered delicacy, as quintessentially English as Irish stew and Welsh rarebit. Used as an accompaniment for puddings and pies, it is most widely known as being the key component in a traditional cream tea: scones, jam, clotted cream and a pot of tea.
But what actually is it? Made traditionally in the south west of Britain (think Devon and Cornwall), it is a thick, rich yellow-coloured cream, made by subjecting unpasteurised cows milk to heat until the cream rises to the surface, forming a slight golden crust. Once cooled, the clots of cream are then skimmed from the top. Its importance to the UK is such that it enjoys EU-sanctioned protected status, similar to France and its rights to the name of Champagne. Did you know it was one of the last meals served to passengers on Concord's final flight around the world? True...
I'm quite partial to tea, scones and jam, and I've never come across it here in NZ so it was logical to pursue clotted cream as an experiment. There are a wealth of recipes available to try, but this one was the most straight forward (from an old Aunt Daisy cookbook). Off to the Kai lab!
You will need two parts milk to one part cream; here, I used one litre of full cream milk (whole milk) and a 500ml bottle of cream.
Pour the milk and cream into a bowl or pot and leave overnight in the fridge to allow the cream to rise to the top. The creamy layer that forms will be quite substantial.
Remove the bowl of cream from the fridge and place over a pot of boiling water. Reduce to a simmer.
Over the course of an hour you'll see the surface of the cream start to form a yellow skin; it will also start to form sporadic bubbles (that's bubble, not boil - if it boils, you've got it far too hot).
After an hour, which according to my recipe should be sufficient cooking time, it should look like the photo below - quite a substantial frothy yellow crust. Take it off the pot and place it in the fridge to cool.
Once cool, carefully skim the clotted cream off the surface.
And there you go! Isn't it lovely, all yellow and rich! It tastes as you'd expect cream to taste, with the added sensation of more substance and body, compared to say, whipped cream. Consequently, it's a little richer too...
...and the perfect compliment to scones and jam. Don't use butter - my god, it's rich enough as it is - if you do, the little man who calculates your health insurance premiums will hear your arteries change down a gear to accomodate the load, mark my words. Apparently, I've served this backwards - it's meant to be cream first, then jam - regional bias apparently, although if your scones are still warm from the oven, cream first would result in it dripping all over the place. Until I get to the UK and spend a warm spring afternoon with a proper cream tea at an English tea room, this will have to do. Time for more tea - pip pip!
Oh, by the way - the leftover milk? Use it to make rice pudding. I won't give you a recipe because you must have one somewhere surely. Failing that, just ask the internet. Bye bye.
Interesting links:
Simple DIY clotted cream (made with mascarpone) clickety
Wikipedia clickety
Background on Devonshire cream teas clickety
Click on the photo that opens this post - it really does look quite grand!
Hello! What are you contemplating having for morning tea today? You could trot off to your local bakery and settle for a piece of cake or slice, made, like pretty much everything else gazing at you from inside the cabinet, from premix. Or you could whip up your own slice of gooey, chocolatey, arterial-clogging goodness! Put your health insurance policy to one side (or use it to make one of these), and start gathering the following:
For the base, you'll need -
Half a cup of brown sugar
Two thirds of a cup of dessicated coconut
Two thirds of a cup of self-raising flour
85g butter, melted
Three quarters of a king-sized bar of caramello chocolate*
*People of Aotearoa! If you're using Cadburys, try and track down the bars you see being sold through schools and kindys - those are still made here in NZ using their old recipe and consequently taste a lot better than the Australian mix presently occupying space on our supermarket shelves (yes, I know they've reverted back to the old recipe, but the supermarkets are still trying to get rid of that stock). Alternately, you could just use Whittakers or another brand.
Caramel Filling -
60g butter
4 tablespoons golden syrup
2 cans of sweetened condensed milk
Topping -
King-sized bar of milk chocolate
Chocolate shavings
Gold leaf, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, etc
Right - off to battle... Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius. Dig out a 20cm square cake pan and line it with baking paper. Grab your caramello and chop into rough chunks. Combine the brown sugar, coconut, and flour in a large bowl and whisk like the devil. Hurl in the cut-up chocolate. Add the melted butter and mix with a wooden spoon until well combined.
Firmly press the mixture into the pan using the back of a spoon.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned.
Set base aside to cool and start making your caramel. Keep the oven on!
When I first made this, there didn't seem to be enough caramel so I've doubled the amount; you could halve it, but it won't look anywhere near as impressive. Place butter and golden syrup in a pot over medium heat, stirring to melt and combine. Once done, add your condensed milk. Stir constantly over medium heat for about 9-12 minutes, until caramel thickens - don't stop stirring! If you do, it will catch and you'll end up with caramelised flecks. It's not the end of the world if it happens; just take it off the heat & pass it through a sieve to remove them. Pop back into a clean pot and carry on, stirring constantly (listen to me! tsk...)
Spread caramel over the base using a spatula. Pop back into the oven for a further 10 or so minutes, just until the edges of the caramel colour to a pale brown. Remove and let it cool.
Melt the milk chocolate in a small pot over very low heat, stirring frequently. Alternatively, melt the chocolate in the cool little double boiler you found in a second hand store in Greytown (yay me!). Spread melted chocolate over caramel. If you have spare chocolate like I did, cut it up into rough chunks and scatter over the slice. And to seal the deal, sprinkle with chocolate shavings or flake. Then buy some running shoes, fatty.
Pop your slice into the fridge for about 15 minutes. Remove, take out of pan and cut into pieces. If you leave it any longer in the fridge, the chocolate could set quite hard, making it diabolically awkward to cut. Oh, and to make cutting easier, pop the kettle on and warm the blade in the boiling water - way easier.
And there you go! Morning tea? Sorted! Serve with lashings of tea and cupcakes to someone beautiful...
