A trip to Vienna

August Bank Holiday weekend saw a bit of a jam-making fest at my house, so I sought out a recipe to use some of it up! Delia's Viennese Tartlets (on page 107 of Delia's Cakes) were not something I had tackled before and since they are filled with jam they seemed perfect.

The recipe is very heavy on butter and flour with a bit of icing sugar and cornflour basically - all ingredients you can usually find in the house without making a special trip. There really isn't much to it - mix all the ingredients then divide between paper cases. The tricky bit was shaping the mixture, because they each needed a well in the middle for the jam to fit into later. The mixture is a stiff one so it wasn't the easiest thing to do, or to make look neat.




They smelled beautiful while baking, and the texture is a strange one - very short and buttery (as Delia describes), like some sort of cross between a fairy cake and a shortbread biscuit. I used up the dregs of my homemade jam - four strawberry, four raspberry and four blueberry. Once they were cool, in went the jam and they were ready to eat.

I'm not sure I would do this again, although they make a nice alternative to jam tarts if a jammy treat is what you're after, and although not quite as neat looking, the tartlet mixture is a lot less hassle than making pastry. They did taste lovely. All in all a successful bake... but it hasn't changed my life.

Chocolate Cake... and a Pint

We seem to be on a run of chocolate recipes at the moment and here's another one we all thought sounded great from the first time we saw it - Chocolate Beer Cake. Delia's book has a whole section on chocolate cakes, and this looks like one of the best. I have made something with a similar idea before - a Nigella recipe for Guinness Chocolate Cake which was delicious, but very different to how this one turned out.

Julie tackled this recipe, giving us all a treat at our fortnightly team meeting. As you might expect, the recipe (on page 174 of Delia's Cakes) included Guinness (or any dark stout) and a fair bit of chocolate. The Guinness appeared in both the cake and the icing, and as someone who hates the stuff (I went to the factory in Dublin last year and only managed about 5 sips with a screwed up face before abandoning my free pint!) I have to say that this was absolutely delicious. You can't really taste the 'beery' element, you just know there's something there giving the chocolate flavour a bit of a twist.



Julie reported that the mixture was very runny (as you can see from the picture - it looks like melted chocolate!) - definitely not a cake to make in a loose bottomed tin unless you want to spend the rest of the day cleaning your oven! When it came out of the oven, it was really stuck to the greaseproof paper and difficult to get out of the tin, but it was all worth the effort!

Not being a fan of walnuts, Julie opted to use pecans instead - these were used for decoration on top, but also chopped up finely and put in the filling. They added a nice crunch to the cake - I wouldn't really have thought of including nuts in this sort of recipe, but it worked.

There was a long silence at our team meeting while we enjoyed this one - the cake itself is really light, and the icing rich and chocolatey which makes for a great combination. It's a great option to make as a birthday cake for someone who likes a pint of Guinness, but I am proof that you don't have to like beer to like this cake. It does have a bit of a grown up taste, so probably not a child friendly one, but otherwise if you like a good chocolate cake, you're going to love this recipe!

Energy Bars fit for a Half Marathon

I have had my eye on this recipe since first getting my hands on this book - Delia's recipe for Chocolate Marbled Energy Bars appears on page 182 and she tells us the history, that these were made on TV with Dawn French for Comic Relief. By a happy coincidence, my own energy bars have been helping towards another charity (more on that later).

There were quite a few ingredients in this one that you wouldn't necessarily have in the cupboard, but luckily, I happened to have a few leftover packs from a Kellogg's variety pack (since everyone always grabs the Coco Pops and leaves the boring stuff) so my 25g of Rice Krispies and Bran Flakes were taken care of (just the right quantity too - it's like Delia knew!). Dried fruits, pecans, oats and condensed milk as well as (quite a lot of!) chocolate and I was all ready to rock.

Once you've got hold of all the ingredients, putting them together is really quite simple. Toasting pecans then chopping everything up took a bit of time but then it really was just a case of melting the condensed milk and syrup and mixing it all together then packing it into a tin a popping it in the oven.

You could leave it there - Delia says they are also tasty without the chocolate on top, and if you wanted a healthier energy bar very similar to (but much nicer than) cereal bars you can buy in the supermarket, all you'd need to do was chop. The oaty look makes you think you're getting something like a flapjack, but by using condensed milk instead of butter and sugar, they feel much lighter and crisper.

I decided not to leave it as a healthy option, but went for it with the chocolate. Delia said 150g each of dark and white chocolate, but I'm not a fan of plain chocolate so I went for milk and white instead. Both were melted in a bowl over simmering water, and then came the fun bit - marbling.  You can see from the pictures how easy it was - just blobs of melted chocolate swirled with a cocktail stick up and down, and then across. The result is really effective.


Very unlike me, I was patient with this one and left the whole thing in the fridge until the chocolate was really solid. I cut it into 16 pieces with the intention of sharing it around, but I have to confess I probably ate at least 10 of those! Those who did get a piece really liked it - it got the thumbs up from Julie and Laura, and by my friend Vic who was in need of the energy having been up half the night with a brand new puppy.

 

Now time for the shameless plug... part of the reason I made these energy bars was to keep me fuelled for my training - on Sunday 18th October I'm running a half marathon (The Great Birmingham Run) to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Care. Unfortunately chocolate, oats and dried fruit are not all I need for motivation - raising money for a great cause will get me out training so I can last the distance (only managed 8 miles so far of the 13.1!). So please visit my JustGiving page and give what you can! Thank you!

 

https://www.justgiving.com/Rebecca-Chitty

Chinese takeaway Chocolate Cupcakes

I had a friend visiting this week (a teacher on summer holidays) so we decided to tackle one of Delia's recipes during her stay. Laura leafed through Delia's Cakes and came up with her Chocolate 'Surprise' Cupcakes on page 92. And surprising they were.

Now, I make chocolate cupcakes pretty much every week at work, but I have never made them like this. Surprise number one was that the cupcakes contained mashed potato. Weird. However, not the strangest thing we would put in the mix. Not by a long shot.

The recipe itself wasn't too tricky. Boiling and mashing a potato was a bit of a hassle, but we coped (by sunbathing in the garden while the water boiled). We had to melt some of the ingredients together and then mix them together with the dry ones. So far so good.

Having long ago given up nearly all of my baking equipment to my business, I found that all I had at home were a couple of pretty old fairy cake trays, and a bit of a random selection of cases to fit them. We picked out some blue ones, since Laura planned to take the cupcakes home to London for her (Man City loving) other half Chris to taste.

So, on to the second 'surprise' - and this one makes mashed potato seem perfectly normal. Delia's recipe calls for a level teaspoon of Chinese five spice... what??! She says you could leave it out for children, but as two fully grown adults we thought we'd give it a try - trusting in Delia's wisdom. What a mistake.

While they were baking, a strange smell which somehow merged together two lovely smells (one a Chinese takeaway, and one a batch of chocolate cupcakes) into one very strange one. They were a bit smaller than cupcakes, so we made around 18 rather than 12 and they took a bit less time to bake than suggested (just under 15 minutes).

The icing was pretty straightforward to make - we melted together some chocolate and some condensed milk then popped it in the fridge to cool. It took far longer than Delia's 5 minutes to firm up enough to spread (in fact, it was still pretty runny when we came to use it) but spread we did. We tasted one before the icing and it really was an odd taste. Not unpleasant, but not exactly a joy for the taste-buds either. We thought the super-sweet icing might help, and it did. As did the addition of chocolate buttons. But they still tasted just a little bit wrong. The potato did make them soft and moist, but the spice I would definitely call an experiment that didn't work (sorry Delia).

You might be wondering what Chris made of the cupcakes once they had made their journey back to London. I think it is best represented in question and answer form...

L: What is your initial response?
C: I need water
L: Now you've had some water, what is your initial response to either flavour or texture?
C: Gingery
L: What do they make you think of?
C: Ed Sheeran (in reference to the ginger taste I assume!)
L: What do you think are in them?
C: Ginger and chocolate
L: What is your response to the information they contain mashed potato and Chinese five spice?
C: I can't taste mashed potato
L: You're not supposed to - it's for texture
C: They're alright actually.

I think Chris sums it up correctly (and ever so eloquently)... "they're alright actually". Thanks to Chris and Laura for their help with this one! And thanks to Delia for getting me to buy Chinese five spice, as it made a very tasty chicken stir fry the following night!

(Very Crunchy) Ginger Oat Bicuits

Julie has been showing us all up again by baking yet more biscuits! This time Crystallised Ginger Oat Biscuits on page 157 of Delia's Cakes.

Similar to a flapjack in their make-up, these little biscuits are made from oats, butter, sugar golden syrup and flour with plenty of, of course, ginger - both ground and crystallised. We seem to be drawn to ginger recipes recently and even those that don't have much ginger in them seem to taste like it (see Chris's response to my chocolate cupcakes!).

When all the melted and dried ingredients were mixed together, the mixture was to be divided into 12 and rolled into balls in your hand, then placed onto a baking sheet with room to expand. Delia assured Julie they would. However, after their 20 minutes of baking, not so much! They stayed pretty small and Julie reported, very crunchy indeed. A bit disappointing was the overall assessment. If you like oats and ginger and have very strong teeth, perhaps they are worth a try!

Next time, something a little less gingery I think - we need to experiment with some new flavours, and they are certainly to be found in Delia's Cakes. Watch this space!

Jamaican Ginger Cake? Yes, I did...

After investing in a brand new shiny heavy gauge loaf tin when we started the blog, I felt it was time to start putting it to use! Friday's fortnightly team meeting was looming, and I volunteered to cater with Delia's Dark Jamaican Gingerbread. As Delia's introduction says, it has become a 'factory-made clone', but the homemade version is so much nicer than the ones you get from the supermarket.

It was pretty straightforward to make - measuring the treacle was a bit of a challenge as it sticks to whatever you measure it in (!) but Delia's genius tip of putting the tin into a pan of barely simmering water really helped, making the treacle really runny (it made me wonder if this is why golden syrup and treacle are still sold in proper tins and haven't been replaced with a modern plastic version... if so, top marks to Tate & Lyle!). It was a fairly straightforward recipe, a very runny one, that got poured into my lovely new tin. With a bit of help from my beautiful measuring spoons that were a thank you present for making a friend's wedding cupcakes (thanks Flo & Dave!), I successfully measured out all the spices which give the gingerbread some real heat.

It took over an hour to bake, so it's not a recipe to make when you're in a hurry, but it made the house smell amazing. Following Delia's suggestion, I kept the cake in the greaseproof lining and stored it in a tin overnight before being tempted to try any. Since Julie wasn't well (curled up on the sofa with a pack of tissues), our team meeting was cancelled, so the judging took place just by Laura and me - we both loved it. On my way home, I spotted a Jamaican festival setting up to take place over the weekend in a park off the Pershore Road - I would love to say I made this cake in its honour, but it was a pure coincidence!

Delia recommends serving this in thick slices spread with butter. I don't think it needs the butter personally, but I did try my own serving suggestion - broken up pieces of it into my banana and custard the following night made for a delicious dessert. Whether served in this slightly unusual way, or simply as a slice of cake, this really is worth trying - it's sticky and spicy and really tasty.

From Birmingham to Bolton... the travelling cookies

Perhaps because they are a bit less time consuming than cakes, we really have been cracking on with biscuit recipes in our quest to complete all the recipes in Delia's book of cakes. My latest was Oat & Raisin Cookies from page 142. I'm a big fan of these, and as you will know from my earlier entry on Flapjacks, my other half is a self-confessed granola addict. Having gone up to Bolton for a couple of months with work, I thought it might be nice to send him a care package. Granolas don't last so well in the post (I speak from experience) not to mention the cost for posting such a heavy snack, so I took a couple of the key ingredients (oats and raisins) and decided Delia's Oat & Raisin Cookies would travel a bit more successfully (and economically!).


Making them was a dream - melt some butter then add all the other ingredients, stir together and split the mixture into 24 little balls. 15 minutes in the oven and ta-da! It made exactly 24 'about the size of a walnut', all squashed down pretty flat before they went into the oven. You could tell from how stiff the mix was that they weren't going to spread all that much. When I make things like this, I'm always tempted to add a bit of spice - nutmeg, cinnamon or mixed spice - I don't know why, it's a compulsion I have, but I resisted on this occasion and very glad I did. You could taste the butter and the dark sweetness from the dark brown sugar. After a day or two they got a bit more chewy and were all the better for it.


Amazingly, a dozen of them survived the trek via Royal Mail from Birmingham to Bolton and were enjoyed, I'm told, with a few cups of tea up north. A highly post-able bake for anyone wanting to send a sweet parcel to a loved one far away! (They're also worth making if they're not being posted anywhere - so much tastier than supermarket versions!).