Classic Sponge

Rose Petal Sponge Cake

So despite saying I was going to lay off the rose petal treats it was the only jam in the house so I made rose petal jam and cream filled vanilla sponge cake. Quite the mouthful in many ways. The sponge cake was made using Delia Smith's All-in-one-sponge which is the recipe I always use because it is dead easy. On my mothers instruction I used Soya butter to my disgust but you couldn't taste it in the cake. For more about the all in one sponge cake have a look at a previous post: Rose Petal Fairy Cakes but the basic ingredients are flour, baking powder, eggs, caster sugar and soft butter. I also used vanilla extract.

The Ingredients for an All-in-One-Sponge

I doubled the recipe so as to make two cakes but when I took them out of the oven they were a bit shallow as I suspected. Upon turning the page of the cook book I discovered that for layered cakes 50% more cake mixture was needed. Not to worry. So what happened to the other cake... Well I attempted to make lemon curd but it was all lumpy and not worth photographing and well the cake was disgusting. Still gobbled it up all the same. Fortunately, the second cake was simply filled with rose petal jam and cream and then dusted with icing sugar. Yum Yum!

The Sponge Cake Cooling

Rose And Cream Sponge Cake

More Marshmallows

Scary Coloured Marshmallows

So I attempted the marshmallows again. Tad obsessive but I want to get them perfect! This time I opted for some flavours! I split the mixture into 3 bowls and added a cap of food colouring and a cap of essence to each bowl. The green ones are peppermint, the yellow ones are lemon and and the pink ones are rose. A cap of colour was far too much and it produced gaudy colours to say the least. Also extra lemon essence wouldn't of gone astray and alot less mint! I love mint but this was just too much. The mint ones have to be stored separately as the mint started seeping into the other ones. The rose flavoured ones were perfect! 

Mmm Rose Petal Jelly aka Jam

Now rose essence is probably quite difficult to get your hands on so instead I use rose water which is more dilute and available in most pharmacies because it has many beneficial properties. It is often used as a cleanser by people with dry or sensitive skin. It can also be added to your shampoo to prevent hair loss. Just make sure it is pure rose water not rose water and glycerin as I've no idea if it tastes nice. If you are feeling very adventurous you could try distill your own rose petals. My Mom did this about a month ago and made lovely rose petal jam which is great on bread or as the filler in a cake. 

Back to the marshmallows. They were still not as fluffy as I'd like and I think this is partly to do with the whole not having a sugar thermometer and hence not reaching 130 degrees Celsius and the fact that when I separated the mixture in the 3 bowls it cooled down alot and began to set. This made it extremely difficult to pour it into the tins to let it set. Therefore I think alot of the air was squeezed out of it while scraping it out of the bowl. Also I greased the cling film with oil this time instead of butter and I had no trouble at all getting the cling film off. I enjoyed some of the mint mallows in a cup of hot chocolate last night while watching some Harry Potter in preparation for the final movie! 

So another not so perfect attempt at marshmallows as they still look rubbish but I'll get there eventually! It was alot easier this time as I'd an extra set of hands to help manage the mess and so forth. 

Tasty Summer Treats!

It is summer time and that means everyone wants light tasty treats packed full of fruit as opposed to rich tasty Biscuit Cake. First up is a strawberry and blueberry roulade. I used the following  Mary Berry Strawberry Roulade Recipe. However, I did not use any almonds or greek yogurt and I added blueberries. The strawberries and blueberries were fresh and locally grown which made for a very tasty treat. It was my first time making a pavlova mixture and I was quite happy with the results. The recipe was excellent and very clear. As you can see the pavlova cracked in places as it was too deep for rolling. This happened because the oven I was using didn't fit a normal size baking tray and I had to use a smaller one! I also over did the filling from an aesthetic point of view but no one complained about the taste.

Strawberry and Blueberry Roulade

Stork Perfect for Cakes

 I am always making strange cupcakes and cakes so I decided for once to make a simple fairy cake... well sort of. I used this recipe by Delia Smith, All in One Sponge Video which I simply spooned into bun cases instead. You need to reduce the baking time by about 5mins for buns instead of a cake.  It is best to use a soft butter that comes in a tub such as Stork Perfect for cakes which is available in the UK and Ireland. Since I did not have any of this butter I used Stork Perfect for Pastry Butter which is also soft but resulted in a more crispier than fluffy sponge as you can see from the photo. This meant that it was difficult to cut the top off the bun and make the traditional fairy cake wings. Therefore I scooped out a circle in the middle carefully so as not to break it up. Dropped in half a teaspoon of raspberry jam followed by a desert spoon of cream. Then I placed the removed sponge back on top and placed half a homegrown raspberry on top.

Raspberry and Cream Fairy Cake

Finally, maybe not quite a summer treat as these pancakes were quite thick for Irish standards and not anywhere near as thin as a crepe would be. However, they were scrumptious and a good alternative to a heavy fry for breakfast on a busy day. They are smaller than usual as the only non-stick pan left in my student house was for frying eggs but I think it was a nice touch. The shapes were cut out using cookie cutters.

The pink sugar was left over from a previous baking experience. I made it by placing ONE drop of red food colouring in a bowl and adding sugar until the desired colour was achieved. It is not uniform in colour at first due to the food colouring clumping together but if you pass it through a sieve the clumps will be removed. Be warned, you need alot of sugar to make it pink, the food colouring goes a long way. It may even be up to 500g! However, I've just been using the sugar as normal in other cakes and it has not effected the colour. Though pancakes take awhile to make and cook they are worth it. Other topping that we had were the traditional lemon and icing sugar, chocolate spread, golden syrup and bananas. Yum. Keeping on the theme of light treats this summer I also made Marshmallows!

Pankcake with Pink Sugar

Pancakes with Chocolate Spread