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

I ♥ Macarons!

Homemade Rose Macarons

Yes I did! They weren't perfect but way better than I expected considering all the hype about them! I first came across Macarons when my French mate brought some over for my housemate as a present and I just happened to be at the table at the time and it would of just been rude of me not to try one. They were from Ladureé. At first we were like did you bring these from Paris! But no Ladureé have a counter in Brown Thomas in Dublin. So I tried a rose flavoured one and it was devine! I was hooked and armed witha a voucher for Brown Thomas I had, I bought a big box of Macarons from Ladureé. One of every flavour. Nom Nom.

The Perfect Macaron after Seriouseats.com

A friend of mine who is an excellent cook told me she had got a book on macarons but said she was disapointed as the language wasn't great and it resulted in a not so perfect macaron. Now I think she might of been talking about I ♥ Macarons the must have book on macarons but it is translated from Japanese and supposedly mainly just pretty pictures. So after alot of reading of blogs and so forth I decided to give rose macarons a go, following the advice of this guy, David Lebovitz, who seems to be the dude when it comes to pastries or something like that. He refers to a 'foot' which is the bubbly looking bit on the bottom of the macarons. See the photo above. I didn't achieve this but heres hoping I will next time!

Pencil Marks for the Macarons

Powdered Almond, Powdered Sugar, Granulated Sugar and Egg Whites

Anyway I started off by drawing circles that were about an inch in diameter on some baking paper to act as a guide when I piped the mixture out. I drew 30 of these circles, 15 on for each baking tray. I had ground almonds already but I ground them some more so they were more powdery. However this made the almond clump together. This meant I had to roast the almond on a baking tray to dry it out. I put it in the oven for 10mins and hoped for the best. In the meantime I powdered some sugar in the blender. You could use icing sugar but sometimes this has added cornflour which supposedly causes the macarons to crack. 

Mixing the Colour into the Egg Whites

I whisked the sugar and egg whites up and added the colour (half a cap of red colouring) and a cap of rose water to the mixture at this point as I was folding the rest of the ingredients in later and wouldn't be able to mix the colour at this point. I also made it slightly redder than I wanted as I knew the almonds and powdered sugar would dilute the mix. The almonds were still clumped together after roasting and it required alot of effort to sieve them into the egg whites with the icing sugar as they kept clogging up the sieve. I eventually got there. 

Piped Macarons Ready for Baking

My Syringe with a Plain Cap

So the mixture was easy to but into my syringe piper unlike butter icing which is a nightmare! Runny enough to flow out easy, thick enough to control and pipe into nice domes. I'm sure a skilled hand could spoon them out neatly if no piping bag was available. Once I'd piped them all out I had to rap the baking tray against the counter a few times to flatten the top of the macarons as they are meant to have flat tops not domes. Popped them in the oven at gas mark 1 for 15mins. They looked great. Maybe starting to golden a little which I didn't want as it would ruin the colour. I let them cool and then things went down hill a bit. 

Macarons Fresh Out of the Oven

When I tried to lift the macarons off the baking paper they started to crumble! Perfect shells had formed but there was mainly just a big void of air in the centre with a bit of gooey macaron STUCK to the baking paper! Then I realised I'd used greaseproof paper not baking paper, hence the sticking problem but not why the centre was nothing but air, my Mom thinks I should of left them in for longer. Oh well I'll know next time. Never the less out of the 30 shells as I'm now calling them I managed to salvage maybe 18 or so of them i.e. 9 Macarons. :( I was not a happy bunny but I was still excited as they looked awesome!

Homemade Rose Macarons

I mixed a bit of butter, icing sugar and some rose water up and using my syringe piped it in a circle around the outside of the bottom of the macarons. Ideally I should of filled them but they were so fragile they were cracking under the weight of the filling. It was a very rich filling anyway so it didn't matter. I didn't add any colour to the the filling as the pink and white contrast is quite pretty. I was thinking of flavouring it something different. Maybe vanilla but I was too lazy to go get some from the cupboard (Does anyone else think its strange seeing cupboard written down as everyone glosses over the p?)

Homemade Rose Macarons

Homemade Rose Macarons

So there was a lot of wastage, not a lot of sticky centre, no foot but who cares. They were delicious! I am however going to lay off the rose flavoured stuff for awhile! If you are going to make them I'd read up on it first as there are loads of tips such as leaving over night to develop in flavour. Yea about that.... Anyway if you wanna read more about my tasty adventures check out my Chocolate Fondant or if you want to see some of the costume parties I've been at try the Stretcher Race! 

Marshmallow Madness!

Cover of the April Edition of 'Delicious'

So after my Mom showed me a recipe in a magazine called 'Delicious'  by BEA VO for marshmallows I've been dying to try them. Unfortunately the recipe is not on the magazine's website so you will have to make do with my instructions if you'd like to try make them yourself. The magazine suggests using strong flavours such as spices, coffee, chocolate, nuts, vanilla, liquers, berry fruits and citrus fruits and not flavours such as apple or peach. One my first attempt I used lemon juice but as I'll explain later the attempt was a complete failure. One my second attempt I was less adventurous and simply went with vanilla.

The Gelatine Sponging 

Firstly, I sprinkled some gelatine into water and allowed it to soak it up in a process called sponging..... It is not very exciting. While that was going on I put some caster sugar and golden syrup and a tiny bit of water in a saucepan. I thought I'd made quite the mess simply measuring out the golden syrup but the worst was yet to come! Now my greatest downfall has been this step. On my first attempt a couple of weeks ago a number of things went wrong. Firstly, I bought Maple flavoured golden syrup by accident. I was furious!   Grrr. Then the recipe said to cover the syrup and sugar in the saucepan with water. Me being an eijet just lashed the water into the pot which led to my mixture being too runny and not mixing properly. This resulted in a separated mess that just tasted like maple syrup and not lemon flavoured marshmallows. Straight to the bin which is saying something because my family are not ones to throw away food!

Measuring out the Golden Syrup... Messy

The tricky bit about heating the golden syrup and sugar is that you are suppose to heat it to between 130 and 140 degrees Celsius. Any less and the marshmallows won't be very fluffy. Any more and the mixture will burn. The sensible thing would be to go out an buy a sugar thermometer or whatever they are called but oh no I was like I'll totally be fine.... Yea I burnt it. I blame my boyfriend for phoning me at that exact moment but really it's my own fault. My Mom managed to do it without a thermometer so why couldn't I? What was worse that wasting time and ingredients is cleaning the pot! Basically I had made burnt toffee and it made an awful mess. I was hoping that my Mom wouldn't come into the kitchen and see what an absolute mess I'd made! A couple of boiled kettles later and no one will ever know.

Mmm Burnt Toffee

Absolute Nightmare!

So after I destroyed all the evidence of my previous mess I started again and nailed it! I brought the mixture to the boil. Then I boiled it for only 3 minutes and took it off the heat. While the mixture was cooling down I whisked the gelatine 'sponge' and then added the syrup and sugar and whisked it all up. Added a cap of vanilla essence and a cap of red food colouring and kept whisking away for ages yet it didn't seem to be getting any thicker. Supposedly, it will form a consistency like bubble gum...

Attempt Number 3: Success!

It may look nice but gelatine stinks!

So I got fed up whisking and decided to line a tin with cling film, which was greased and coated in cornflour but when I returned I noticed a sticky drip hanging off the whisk like an icicle. So I started whisking again and it finally began to thicken up and look very tasty! Poured it into the tin, covered it and put it in the fridge for two hours to set. I went off for a run to keep myself distracted and make room for lots of Marshmallows! 

Is that like Bubblegum?

Mmm Tasty Tasty

A Little Runny for My Liking

So after two agonising hours I could not wait anymore but I had plenty more work to do. Unfortunately I hadn't greased the cling film enough and it just wouldn't come off! The marshmallow was incredibly sticky! I had to douse  the place in cornflour to stop the marshmallow sticking to everything! No point trying to cut it with a knife as it just sticks to it so out comes the scissors my favourite cutting device. So once I'd cut a square I painstakingly removed the cling film from it while covering it in cornflour the whole time. This resulted in not very square marshmallows and lots of cornflour. 

Cutting up the Marshmallow into Squares

Painstakingly Removing the Cling Film

So after all the effort and mess I'd made some oddly shaped tasty marshmallows! They we still very sticky and not as fluffy as I'd like. According to the magazine the lack of fluff is probably due to not reaching 130 degrees. Although they definitely became less sticky and  more tastier the next day. The day after that I don't know as we'd eaten them all by then! Next time I make them I hope to get them even better! I'm thinking maybe rose flavoured ones. I posted the recipe here: Homemade Marshmallow Recipe or if you just want to look at more of my creations have a look at Summer Time Treats, or Yummy Biscuit Cake!

Nom Nom Nom Homemade Marshmallows