bakingwithelliott

How To Make A Battenberg

This week’s recipe is a classic, if you’re from the UK, you’ll know it. I’ll be showing you how to make a Battenberg cake.

If you have never tried or heard of a Battenberg, I’ll give you a quick run down. A Battenberg is a vanilla sponge cake, which is coloured pastel pink and yellow. It’s held in place by apricot jam and finished with a layer of marzipan. You should have a check pattern on the inside as you alternate the layers of cake.

Making the cake isn’t at all difficult, you’ll be using the traditional creaming method (this is where you start by creaming the butter and sugar together, adding the eggs and vanilla, incorporating the dry ingredients and then colouring the cake batter.

The marzipan coating/finishing may not be for everybody, but it’s needed on this recipe. Traditionally you would use standard marzipan but I only had golden marzipan left in my cupboard (this was from Christmas and when I didn’t use it, I was going to make a Simnel cake at Easter but that didn’t happen so I needed to use it up and this was the perfect recipe for it).

As with all my recipes, before you get started, you’ll want to do some prep work. Get your ingredients measured/weighed up, prepare your tin (if you want to, I didn’t but you know your tin) and get any equipment you may need ready. Taking these few extra steps can lower the chance of making a mistake.

Ingredients:

175g Butter.

175g Granulated sugar.

3 Eggs.

250g Plain flour.

2 tsp Baking powder.

½ tsp Vanilla extract.

Pink and yellow food gel/pastes.

60-80g Apricot jam.

350g Marzipan.

Method:

Before you get into making the cake, you’ll want to do some prep work. Start by weighing up all of your ingredients, line your tin (if you decide to) and preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f and get any equipment you intend on using.

To start on the cake, you’ll want to get yourself a mixing bowl and place the butter and granulated sugar into it. Then beat the two together until they are fully combined.

Once they are combined, you can add the eggs one at a time, beating well in-between each addition. Once all of the eggs have been added and are incorporated, you can add your vanilla in and mix to incorporate (if your mixture scrambled a little at this stage, don’t worry. We will correct it in the next stage).

Next you’ll want to add your dry ingredients, passing through a sieve first, this is just to remove any lumps that may be in the dry mix. Incorporate the dry ingredients over a low speed to start with, working your way up to a medium-high speed (you shouldn’t be able to see a single trace of any ingredient but try to not over-mix the cake batter at this stage).

Divide the cake batter in two and colour one pink and the other yellow. I recommend that you start by adding a little and working in more, it’s easier to add colouring rather then trying to take it away…

Put the cake batter into the tin and level it out as best you can, don’t overlap/combine the colours too much. You can make a little divide using some cardboard wrapped in tin/silver foil but I didn’t do this. Once they are levelled and sorted, place into your preheated oven and allow to bake for 30-35 minutes (or until a tester comes out clean).

Once your cakes are baked, allow to cool completely before you intend on using them. Once they are cool enough, you’ll want to level the top off using a cake leveller or a knife and then trim the sides as well, this is just to remove the caramelised edges. Cut each cake in half so you end with 2 strips of pink and yellow cake.

Place your apricot jam into either a small saucepan or microwaveable bowl and warm your jam until is much more spreadable. While that warms, you can roll out your marzipan on a surface which has been dusted with icing sugar.

Once your jam is warmed, brush each of your cake slices with the apricot jam and with the remaining, brush it over the marzipan. Place the sticks of cake together and then place onto the marzipan, around 1cm away from the edge and then wrap the marzipan around the cake, applying a little pressure to ensure it stays in place.

Trim away the ugly edges and enjoy!

That’s all for this week guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back next week with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my Instagram and Twitter. The YouTube video will be linked down below!

Vanilla Cakesicles (Cake Popsicles/Cake Pops)

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Today I have the simplest recipe for these pretty trendy cakesicles or cake-pops, let’s get started, shall we?

Today’s recipe is for a large cake-pop, which is made in a popsicle mould rather than a cake-pop mould. Who doesn’t mind a bit more cake? Seriously.

The recipe I’ll be sharing is for a simple vanilla sponge cake and vanilla buttercream, which when combined make the perfect ‘dough’ for the cake-pops. I opted for white chocolate to finish them, but feel free to use either milk or dark chocolate if you’d prefer. As an optional finish, I drizzled a small amount of melted dark chocolate over, but again, this was optional. Use whatever you’d like to finish them off.

There is nothing difficult about this recipe as you cake make the cake with either a stand mixer, hand mixer or with a wooden spoon. The only thing I didn’t have before I made these cake-pops was the popsicle mould, I ordered one on eBay for £3.99. If you need one, I recommend you check out eBay beforehand.

Ingredients:

Cake:

250g Butter.

250g Granulated sugar.

250g Plain flour.

1 ½ tsp Baking powder.

½ tsp Salt.

4 Eggs.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

Buttercream:

125g Butter.

250g Icing sugar.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

Finishing:

200g White chocolate, melted.

50g Dark chocolate, melted and in a piping bag.

Method:

Before you get into making the cake or buttercream, you’ll want to do some prep work. Weigh up all your ingredients, line your tin (if you need to), preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f and get any equipment you intend on using ready.

To start on the recipe, you’ll want to make the cake. Get yourself a mixing bowl and place the butter, granulated sugar, plain flour, baking powder, salt (passing the dry ingredients through a sieve, to remove any lumps that may be in the dry ingredients), eggs and vanilla.

You can then go ahead and beat this on a low speed to start with, building your way up to a medium-high speed for around 60-90 seconds, by this point the mixture will be very well incorporated and you shouldn’t be able to see a single trace of any ingredient. If the mixture is looking a little stiff add a around 1-2 tablespoons of milk (or more if needed) to help loosen the mixture.

Give the bowl a good scrape down, this is just to incorporate any bits that haven’t been fully incorporated into the mixture. Then add the cake batter into your 8 inch square cake tin and spread it out as evenly as possible, bake in your preheated oven for 30-35 minutes.

While the cake is in the oven baking, it’s best to do the buttercream. To start on the buttercream, get your mixing bowl and add in your butter and beat on a medium-high speed for around 5-7 minutes or until lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency.

Once this has been achieved, you can give the bowl a good scraping down, then add in your first half of icing sugar and beat until its fully incorporated and repeat that stage with the second half of icing sugar. Once that’s all added and mixed in, you can add in your vanilla and mix until incorporated. Place the buttercream into a bowl and place in the fridge until its needed later.

Allow your cake to cool down fully before you intend on using it, otherwise when you add in the buttercream it will melt it and make a horrible sloppy mess… Which nobody wants. I allow my cake to cool down in the tin for around 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and allow to cool fully on a cooling rack before I intend on using it.

After about an hour, I take my cake and break it in half, crumbling it between my fingers until I have got it to the perfect consistency. You will know once you’ve achieved this as it will look like breadcrumbs or have a sandy texture to them – you can also use a food processor which will do the job equally as well.

Now you can add in your buttercream and work the two together either by hand or using your food processor/stand mixer, start with a smaller amount of buttercream and work in more if you need to (it’s easier to add buttercream than to take it away). The perfect consistency is pliable and holds its shape well, you’ll know when you’ve got the perfect consistency – trust me on that.

Take your silicon popsicle mould and place a good amount of your cake ‘dough’ and place it into the mould and press it into place, flattening using your fingers/palm and repeat this step for the remaining cake-pops. Place the mould into the fridge (or freezer if you’re in a rush). Repeat until you have used all your cake ‘dough’ up.

Once all your cake-pops are chilling/firming up, place your white chocolate on a double boiler and melt the chocolate. Once your chocolate is fully melted, you can start to dip each of your cake-pops, one at a time then once dipped, place onto a cake board or cooling rack (whichever you have or works best for you). Allow them to solidify fully before you finish them off.

To finish them off I add a drizzle of dark chocolate but feel free to use whichever chocolate suits you best.

Salted Caramel Cheesecake

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

If you like salted caramel and cheesecake, this recipe is the one for you. Today I’ll be showing you how to make salted caramel cheesecake, let’s get started shall we?

I’ll be honest, I love salted caramel but if you don’t, feel free to make the caramel without the salt and you’ll have the basic caramel sauce recipe covered. This cheesecake has the perfect amount of sweet and salty, it balances pretty well (again, you may want to alter the amounts, I don’t consume huge amounts of salt normally so a little goes a long way for me personally).

Anyway, this cheesecake is as easy as any other I’ve made on my YouTube channel or blog before. If you don’t own a food processer or stand mixer, don’t worry, it can all be done with other tools. Example, when you’re crushing the biscuits for the base, feel free to put them in a Ziploc bag (or similar) and crush them by using a rolling pin, it takes a little longer than using a food processor but yields as good as result and the same goes for the filling. If you don’t have a stand mixer, no worries, you can use a hand whisk – this works just as well, it just requires a little more time and mixing. I used a hand whisk this time around, so feel free to do it whichever way suits you best.

I don’t make the salted caramel sauce in this video but already have a video up on it, check it out here.

Cheesecake:

250g Digestive biscuits.

100g Butter.

600g Soft cheese.

100g Icing sugar.

2 tsp Vanilla extract.

150ml Salted caramel sauce.

300ml Double cream.

Finishing:

200ml Double cream.

1tsp Vanilla extract.

25g Icing sugar.

Salted caramel sauce, in a piping bag.

Sea salt flakes, optional.

Method:

Before you get started, do your prep work, weighing up the ingredients, lining your tin and getting any equipment you need ready.

Take your digestive biscuits and crush them up, I used a food processor but feel free to use Ziploc bag and rolling pin (whichever works best for you).

Once you’ve got them looking like crumbs or to a sandy consistency, you can add the butter which has been melted and mix until the two ingredients are fully incorporated.

Scoop the mixture into your glasses (or the base of an 8-inch round cake tin and compress using a cup measurement or something similar and set in the fridge until needed later) and feel free to compress the mixture a little using the back of a spoon, set in the fridge while you make your cheesecake filling.

To start on the filling, place the soft cheese, icing sugar, vanilla extract and salted caramel into a bowl and beat until they are fully incorporated, this doesn’t take very long.

You can then add in the double cream and whisk until the mixture is thicker in consistency, it should be able to hold its shape well and be a beige-brown colour once it’s done and ready to be used.

I placed the cheesecake filling into a piping bag and piped it into my glasses, this is the most convenient way to do it but you can just scoop up the mixture and place it into the glass if that works for you (if you’re using a 8-inch cake tin, feel free to scoop or pour the mixture into the tin and level it out using a cranked/off-set palette knife and smooth it off the best you can), you can set these in the fridge to set/firm up for a couple of hours (overnight works really well).

When you intend to serve the cheesecake, you’ll want to finish them off. To make the whipped cream that goes on top of the cheesecake, get yourself a medium sized bowl and add the double cream, vanilla extract and double cream and whisk them together until the ingredients are fully incorporated and the cream holds its shape well (don’t over whisk the cream, otherwise it will have an unpleasant mouthfeel, it may turn grainy). Place the cream into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle (or whichever you like) and place in the fridge until you intend to use it, you can also place some of the salted caramel into a piping bag, ready to drizzle over the top.

Pipe your whipped cream on top of each cheesecake, I went right in the centre of the cheesecake but you can be abstract about it if you’d like.

Drizzle/pipe over the slated caramel sauce, use as much or as little as you’d like and as an optional finish you can sprinkle over a small amount of salt, just to enhance the ‘salted’ element of the cheesecake.

Lemon Meringue Eclair’s

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Today I present you with a recipe I made to prevent food waste – it’s lemon meringue eclairs!

I’ve taken the simple choux pastry éclair and jazzed it up by using a fresh cream and homemade lemon curd filling and topped with a lightly torched meringue topping. It’s like having a lemon meringue pie but done differently… It works well, trust me on this one.

Lemon is the perfect flavour for the spring/summer period to be honest, it’s refreshing and tangy – what’s not to love? If you or someone you know likes éclair’s and a lemon meringue pie, I can promise this is the recipe for you.

I know some people can be put off by choux pastry as it can go wrong, but if you follow my recipe it will work out for you – I promise you. Making the pastry isn’t hard or too time consuming to make and you don’t need any specialist equipment to make these.

As with all my recipes, you’ll want to do some prep work. This is to prevent you from making mistakes as you go along. Take some time to weigh up your ingredients, making sure the scales you’re using are accurate (I really recommend using digital scales if possible), line your baking trays with greaseproof/parchment and preheat your oven to 200˚c/390˚f and get ready.

Ingredients:

Choux Pastry:

300ml Water.

125g Butter.

150g Plain flour.

4 Eggs, medium sized.

Pinch of salt.

Filling:

300ml Double cream.

100g Icing sugar.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

Lemon curd (homemade or shop bought – I haven’t shared the recipe for the lemon curd as I have a video coming soon on how I make my jams, spreads and curds).

Meringue Topping:

I can’t give you the exact amount I used as the eggs I use are probably a different size to the ones you’ll be using, however, I’ll tell you how to calculate the meringue topping.

Get the weight of 2 egg whites and whatever that is, double it for the sugar you’ll need. Easy enough to remember, the ratio of egg to sugar is 1:2.

Method:

To start on the choux pastry, get yourself a small-medium saucepan and place the water, butter and salt into it, place that saucepan onto the hob over a medium heat and allow the ingredients to melt, give it a good stir to combine the ingredients once they start to melt. Once the mixture almost reaches a simmer, you’ll want to take it off the heat and add in the flour, whisking it in until its fully incorporate, then place back on the heat and whisk continuously until the flour has been cooked out. You’ll know once the flour has been cooked out as it will leave a coating on the bottom of the saucepan, once you start to see this, get ready to take it off the heat and place it into a mixing bowl and beat it on a medium-high speed until you’re able to touch the side/bottom of the bowl.

Once the pastry has cooled down enough for you to touch the bowl, you can add your eggs, one at a time, beating well in-between each addition. The amount of eggs I have recommended was the perfect amount for my pastry, you may find you need more or less egg (eggs are all different sizes, I used medium eggs). You will want the pastry to take 5 seconds to fall from the paddle attachment, that’s how you know you’ve got the perfect amount of egg.

Once all the egg has been added to the mixture, you can then place your choux pastry into a piping bag (either fitted with a wide plain tip nozzle or not, I opted not to use a nozzle this time around). Get your baking trays (which may or may not be lined with greaseproof/parchment paper). You can then start to pipe on your choux pastry, snip a large hole at the bottom of the piping bag and pipe 5 inch lines onto the greaseproof/parchment paper, once you’re done piping them, you’ll notice they have an ugly end to them, don’t worry about this too much as you’ll correct it before you bake them off.

Now that you’ve got your pastry piped out, you can finish it off before you bake them off. Get a small bowl of water and dampen your finger and just press/smooth down the rough looking edges, this will help correct the ugly looking end and once you’ve done that, you can then go ahead and get yourself a small bowl and beat an egg, then use this as egg wash on the pastry. Once they’ve all been dabbed with water and brushed with egg, you can then place into the oven and bake them off.

While they are baking in your preheated 200˚c/390˚f oven, you’ll want to bake them at that for 20 minutes, then open the door. This is to let the steam out of the oven, this is normal for this recipe, then close the door and bake for a further 10 minutes at the same temperature. Remove them from the oven once they are golden brown and they are firm to the touch. Allow to cool on the tray for a couple of minutes before transferring to cooling racks to fully cool down. You can now freeze the eclairs if you wanted to, they are perfect from frozen as well.

While you’re waiting you can make your sweetened whipped cream filling. Into a mixing bowl add all of the double cream, icing sugar and vanilla, then beat on a medium-high speed until everything is well incorporated and the cream holds it shape. Try not to over whip the cream, otherwise it will turn granular and not have a pleasant mouth feel, place into a piping bag fitted with a small star piping nozzle and set aside in the fridge until needed.

To fill the eclairs is super simple. You can either slice the eclairs open and fill them that way or using the small star tip, gently poke holes into the bottom of the éclair and pipe the cream and lemon curd in that way. I prefer the second method as its what works best for me but feel free to experiment and see what method you like or works best for you!

Now, for the final element of these eclairs, the meringue topping. Don’t be put off by meringue, it’s nowhere near as difficult as it may appear. Get yourself a clean mixing bowl and whisk, into the bowl place the egg whites and whisk on a high speed until egg whites are frothy, then you can start adding your sugar, a little at a time until it’s all added. Once all of the sugar has been added, you can then whisk on a high speed until the sugar is fully incorporated, to test whether it is or not, get a small amount and rub it between your index finger and thumb and if you feel any granules of sugar, continue whisking and if you don’t feel any granules, stop mixing and place the meringue mixture into a piping bag fitted with your nozzle of choice.

Take your eclairs and get ready to finish them. I piped a rope of the meringue on each éclair but feel free to pipe however you like. I just liked the effect a rope had, its completely up to you. Then to finish them off, get yourself a blow torch and start to torch the meringue mixture. I made it a little darker in some places than in other but again this is optional and you can make them all a nice golden brown colour if you’d like.

That’s all for this week guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back next week with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the mean while, don’t forget to check out my Instagram and twitter. The YouTube video will be linked down below!

Quiche Lorraine

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Quiche is the perfect addition to any spring/summer evening, its light but enough with salad to enjoy.

I know, you’re seeing a savoury recipe. These aren’t too common from me as you’ll often find me making sweet baked goods. I have been trying more savoury baking recently, so you may see more of them from me in the future.

As I mentioned above, quiche is perfect for the warmer weather, with a side of salad (if that’s your thing). It’s pretty quick and easy to make, which is even better!

There’s some prep to do now that will save you faffing about later on. Start by remembering to preheat your oven to 200˚/390˚f, weigh up all of your ingredients, cook off the bacon and prepare your equipment.

The pastry I have used is my normal recipe for shortcrust pastry minus the sugar, then it becomes unsweetened and perfect for savoury use – just what we need it for.

The pastry isn’t exactly hard to make, all you need to do is place the flour, salt and butter then combine them together by either rubbing the butter into the flour or pulsing them together in a food processor (I went with the food processor method on this occasion).

Once they are combined, add in the egg and work it into the flour/butter mixture. This will bind the dough together, work them together until almost fully combined then tip out onto a floured surface to knead the pastry together. You’re looking for a clear dough, with no traces of a single ingredient. Wrap in clingfilm/plastic wrap then chill in the fridge for around an hour, this is to allow the butter to firm up and the gluten to relax.

After about an hour in the fridge, the dough should be firm. Take it from the fridge and cut it in half (keep the other half chilled in the fridge), flour your surface well with some plain flour. At this point, preheat your oven to 200˚/390˚f. Place the dough onto the floured surface and roll it out until its slightly bigger than your 8 inch pie dish. Place the pastry over the tart tine and work it into the tin, fix any cracks with the remaining pastry and trim the excess from the edges. You can then dock the pastry with a fork, this is just to stop it from rising while it’s baking, place in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes, you can then add the greaseproof/parchment paper along with the baking beans and blind bake for around 20-25 minute, it should start to look baked.

While your pastry case is in the oven baking, you can make the filling for your quiche. Start by adding your eggs, salt, pepper, milk and double cream into a large mixing bowl and whisk it all together until fully combined. You can then add in the cheese, bacon and onion and using a spatula, mix them until they are fully combined. By this point your pastry case should be ready, so once its done blind being, remove from the oven and remove the baking beans and parchment/greaseproof, then add in the filling (I had a tiny amount left over but added it once it was in the oven). Bake the quiche off at 200˚/390˚f for a further 30 minutes, it should be golden brown and firm to the touch.

Allow the quiche to cool fully before enjoy a slice, surely you shouldn’t eat quiche warm… YUCK!

Ingredients:

Pastry:

1 Egg.

225g Butter.

375g Plain flour.

Pinch of salt

Quiche Filling:

4 Eggs.

1/2 tsp Salt.

1/2 tsp Black pepper, ground.

300ml Whole milk.

100ml Double cream.

200g Cheddar cheese (or your personal favourite).

6 rashers of bacon, cooked and roughly chopped.

1 Onion, medium-large, chopped,

Bake the pastry at 200˚/390˚f for 20-25 minutes, make and add the filling, then bake for a further 30 minutes at the same temperature.

That’s all for this week, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this with your friends and family and check out the other recipes I have up on my blog. Currently working on uploading older recipes from my YouTube channel, so keep your eyes out. Until next week guys, take care.

Zero Waste Raisin Oatmeal Cookies | The Clean Kilo

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Today I’ll be showing you how to make my favourite cookies of all time, raisin oatmeal! These are a chunky variation, perfect for dunking in milk.

Today’s post is a little different to my usual as I tried a zero waste supermarket. In the past few months I’ve seen a few documentaries about how our food and plastic waste are at ridiculous levels, so I decided to make a change and cut mine down to the very minimum I can. Since January 1st 2019, I’ve managed to get my waste down by 75% and all done by making changes which were easy to implement. While buying your ingredients in bulk from the supermarket or wholesale may work out more convenient or cheaper, how much of the packaging is recyclable? How many of you are going to put the ingredients into jars/container once you’re

I had seen these zero waste shops before but never really tried one before as it seemed confusing but its far from it. The nearest one for me is in Digbeth, Birmingham and it’s called The Clean Kilo. If you haven’t visited before, you’re missing out. I would recommend taking your own jars and/or containers but if don’t have any, don’t worry, they have some you can purchase in-store.

The Clean Kilo offers a wide range of products from baking ingredients, dried fruit and eggs through to oils and vinegar, locally grown vegetables and nuts & seeds, perfect for when you may need an exact amount – the prices are very competitive.

The aim of zero waste shopping is to lower the amount of packaging wastage as well as food waste. I don’t know about you but I’m guilty of buying a certain ingredient that I may not use every time I bake, then it gets stored (and sometimes forgotten abou) and I may not need it until it’s gone past the use by date and that’s not only annoying but also wasteful. If you’re like that, don’t forget FIFO (first in first out), that’s the one super useful thing I learnt at college.

The one thing I wasn’t sure about was how it all worked I regards to weighing and getting the final price, it’s actually really simple. The day I visited the women working behind the counter was called Dominika and she was really helpful and informative which was great, she couldn’t have been more helpful. When it comes to weighing and measuring your ingredients, you’ll want to start by getting your empty container and placing it onto the scales, then print out the sticker (this sticker is simply for the weight of the container, keep this one on the container if you intend on using it again in the future, you won’t have to print another one off that way), then you go and fill your container with the product you wish, go back to the scales then scan the bar code on the sticker you printed out earlier on and reweigh the container and print out your final sticker which is the price you’ll pay. Finally you can then go and pay and know you’ve saved some packaging waste from going into the bin.

I’d seen some videos and blog posts online where people had tried zero waste recipes and this would normally be fairly hard, unless you have a local shop. If you’d like to see more zero waste recipes from me, let me know by commenting on the blog post. This is something that’s helping to prevent both packaging and food waste.

Making these cookies doesn’t take too long, to make, so you don’t need an awful lot of time to make them.

Ingredients:

100g Butter.

100g Golden Caster Sugar.

100g Light Brown Sugar.

1 Egg.

225g Plain Flour.

1/2 tsp Baking Powder.

150g Oats.

100g Raisins.

Method:

Before you start on these cookies, you’ll want to do some prep work. Weigh up all your ingredients, line a baking tray with greaseproof/parchment paper and preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f.
Start your cookies by placing the butter, golden caster sugar and light brown sugar into a bowl and beat on a medium-high speed until they are well combined.
Once they are all combined give your bowl a good scrape down and add in your egg and mix on a medium speed until it’s fully incorporated.
Give your bowl a good scrape down, to incorporate any bits that haven’t been fully worked in.
Sift in your dry ingredients and mix them in on a low-medium speed until almost fully incorporated, then add in the oats and raisins and give a mix until the flour is fully incorporated and the oats and raisins are well distributed within the dough.
The dough doesn’t require being chilled before use, so you can use it straight away.
Take a cookie scoop and scoop up two balls of dough per cookie, roll them together into one and he flatten them slightly before placing onto your baking tray, these cookies don’t spread very much while baking.

Place the baking tray into your preheated oven and bake for 8-10 minutes or until slightly coloured around the edge.

Once out of the oven, an optional finish would be to add a few raisins on top.

Allow to cool on the baking tray until fully cooled, then enjoy them. I had mine with a glass of cold milk!

*These cookies can be frozen before being baked, just make sure that they are flattened before you freeze them or after they are baked, just keep them wrapped in clingfilm/plastic wrap.

Strawberry Tart

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

This tart is the perfect addition for any warm day, its sweet and perfectly balanced for the warmer weather. Get your strawberries and we can get started.

To start on the tart you’ll want to start on the crème pâtissière, this will need time to cool before you use it but feel free to make either the crème pâtissière or pastry first, they both need time before you use them. Like with all my recipes, I recommend you do some prep work first by winging up your ingredients, preheating your oven to 180˚/350˚f and getting any equipment you need ready before you start.

For the crème pâtissière, get your medium saucepan and place your milk and vanilla extract into it and place on the hob over a medium-high heat. Bring the milk to a boil. While you wait for your milk to come to a boil, you can make the other part of the crème pâtissière.

Into a separate bowl add the egg yolks and sugar and whisk them together until well combined, then you can add in your plain flour and whisk that in until fully combined. You will notice that the mixture thickens, don’t worry this is normal. You want this to happen, the flour is the thickening agent in the custard.

So, once your milk has reached a boil, you can then add around 1/4 of the milk mix into your egg mixture and whisk that through, then continue pouring the boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking continuously until they are well combined. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and place back on the hob over a medium-high heat, whisking continuously until the mixture has become thicker – make sure you don’t burn the mixture, keep whisking the custard.

Get yourself a shallow sided cake tin and pour the hot custard onto it, spreading it out as thin as possible. This is just to help with the cooling process, cover the mixture with clingfilm/plastic wrap, making sure its touching the top of the custard (this stops a skin from forming on top, which nobody likes). Allow it too cool fully before you intend on using.

The pastry isn’t exactly hard to make, all you need to do is beat the sugar and egg together, then set it aside until later on. Into a bowl or food processor place the flour, salt and butter then combine them together by either rubbing the butter into the flour or pulsing them together in a food processor (I went with the food processor method on this occasion).

Once they are combined, add in the egg/sugar mix and work it into the flour/butter mixture. This will bind the dough together, work them together until almost fully combined then tip out onto a floured surface to knead the pastry together. You’re looking for a clear dough, with no traces of a single ingredient. Wrap in clingfilm/plastic wrap then chill in the fridge for around an hour, this is to allow the butter to firm up and the gluten to relax.

After about an hour in the fridge, the dough should be firm. Take it from the fridge and cut it in half (keep the other half chilled in the fridge), flour your surface well with some plain flour. Place the dough onto the floured surface and roll it out until its slightly bigger than your 8 inch pie dish. Place the pastry over the tart tine and work it into the tin, fix any cracks with the remaining pastry and trim the excess from the edges. You can then dock the pastry with a fork, this is just to stop it from rising while it’s baking, place in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes, then give it a good coat with some egg wash then place in the preheated oven and bake for 23-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Once your pastry case and crème pâtissière are fully cooled down, you can start to assemble your tart. Place the custard into a bowl and whisk it until its smooth and more pliable, once you’ve got it spreadable, add it into the pastry case and level it off as best you can using an offset palette knife or the back of a spoon. Set aside (or in the fridge) while you slice your strawberries.

Next, you’ll want to slice your strawberries, I slice most of mine into 3 or 4’s so there is the right thickness but you do it however you like, you could even place the strawberries on whole, just slice the green bit off the top.

Now you can place the strawberry slices on top of the tart, starting on the outside working your way into the middle of the tart, this is the way that works best for me personally but feel free to change it, I’m just providing the basic information. Once all your strawberries are on, you can then warm up the apricot jam and then brush it over the fruit. This acts as a preservative and adds flavour.

Ingredients:

Crème pâtissière:

500ml Milk.

1-2 tsp Vanilla extract.

120g Egg yolks.

100g Granulated white sugar.

60g Plain flour.

Pastry:

1 Egg.

90g Granulated white sugar.

225g Butter.

375g Plain flour.

Pinch of salt

Finish:

Strawberries, sliced.

Apricot jam, for the glaze.

So that’s all for this week, I hope you enjoyed this recipe. It’s a pretty quick and easy recipe and perfect for this time of year (especially if the weather is decent), so make this and enjoy the weather with your friends and family. I’ll see you again next week guys!

As always, I’ll leave the YouTube video down below if you’re interested in watching it!

Cadbury Creme Scotch Eggs

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

You read the title right, Cadbury creme scotch eggs. These are sweet, not savoury and are the perfect indulgence to treat yourself to over Easter this year!

This weeks post and YouTube video is a collaboration with my friend Dolores (aka The Baking Diva).

If you advent heard of these before, I will give a quick run down as to what they are. It’s a whole Cadbury’s creme egg, wrapped with a chocolatey cake and buttercream mixture and finished with even more chocolate, roll the balls in grated chocolate and enjoy them. They are fairly rich and very indulgent – perfect as an alternative to easter eggs, especially for a chocoholic (we all know at least one).

Before you get started on this recipe, you’ll want to do some prep. Preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f, weigh up all your ingredients into bowls and line your baking tray/tin with some greaseproof or parchment.

The only baking component of this recipe is the chocolate cake and it’s super easy to make. For the cake, we’ll be using the classic creaming method – this is where you cream together the butter and sugar together, then gradually add the eggs, followed by the dry ingredients. To start, place your butter and sugar into a mixing bowl and beat for a couple of minutes until they are well combined and have gone lighter in colour and consistency, then you can start to add your eggs and vanilla, one at a time beating well in-between each addition. Give the bowl a good scrape down, then you can add your dry ingredients, passing them through a sieve first. This is just to remove any lumps that may be in the dry mixture (cocoa powder is prolific for having lumps).

Once you have sifted the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl, start to incorporate them on a low-medium speed to start, add a tablespoon of milk at a time if your mixture is a little thick. Make sure that all of the ingredients are incorporated fully, you want the cake batter to be clear (not a trace of a single ingredient is visible), then give your bowl a good scrape down just to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully worked in from earlier on.

I then transferred my cake batter into my lined cake tin, I used a 7×10 inch baking tray but use something around this size and just watch how long it needs in the oven. All ovens are different and take various times to bake, so use my times as a guideline. spread and level out the cake batter as best you can, then place into your preheated oven and bake for 25-30 minutes.

While your cake is baking in the oven, feel free to wash up any equipment you’ve used and get started on the buttercream. To start the buttercream, place the butter into your mixing bowl and beat it on its own for a couple of minutes until its lighter in colour and consistency, then add in your first half icing sugar and cocoa powder and give a good mix until they are worked in, then give your bowl a good scrape down and add the remaining half of icing sugar and give that a good mix until its fully incorporated, give the bowl another good scrape down then add in the melted chocolate – this is optional but I like the flavour it adds. Mix that in until it’s fully incorporated and then set aside until it’s needed later on.

Once your cake is baked and out of the oven, allow it to cool completely before you intend on using it. While you wait, wash up any bits ad pieces that may need washing and you can also grate your chocolate ready for when you need it in a short while.

Once your cake is cooled down, you can then cut the cake in half and start to crumble it into crumbs, this is easy todo, just rib the cake in-between your finger tips until there are no large lumps left in the crumbs, then add in around half of your buttercream mixture and just rub the two together (like you were making pastry, rubbing the butter into the flour style). You may need to add more cake or more buttercream, it just depends on how much of each you placed into the bowl originally. Once you’ve got the buttercream and cake well combined it should be a thick but pliable consistency.

Now that you’ve got all of your components made, you can star assembling. Take a Cadbury’s creme egg and a good amount of the cake mixture and place the creme egg into the cake mixture, try to cover the egg as equally as possible using the cake mixture, then roll it between your hands to make it a more round, then roll in the grated chocolate and set onto a plate or stand and enjoy them.

These are really indulgent and are a treat that’s perfect for Easter, so if you have an event coming up that Easter themed, these will go down a treat. I will leave the Youtube video below!

Ingredients:

Cake:

200g Butter

200g Granulated sugar.

3 Eggs.

170g Plain flour.

30g Cocoa Powder.

1 tsp Baking powder.

Pinch of salt.

Buttercream:

150g Butter.

300g Icing sugar.

20g Cocoa powder.

50g Milk chocolate, milk.

Grated Chocolate:

100g Milk chocolate, grated.

Lemon Velvet Cake

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Whether you call her mom or mum, make sure you make her a special cake this mother’s day.

I now that Mother’s day is on a different date depending on where you are in the world, but in the UK its this coming Sunday. Make sure you’ve got all the ingredients in and show your mom how much you love her in cake form.

The cake isn’t just any cake, its a lemon velvet cake. It’s perfect for this recipe (and for spring in general). It’s packed with a lemon-y punch and finished with vanilla buttercream, it might not sound like it but these work really well.

You have 3 layers of lemon velvet cake, brushed with a lemon simple syrup and then finished with a ombre vanilla buttercream coloured in 3 shades of purple – the colours are customisable to suit you better!

To start, you’ll want to make the macarons. These are normally something that can be difficult to make but if you use the method I have provided, you will find them easier. Into a large bowl add in the egg whites and the colouring paste of choice, then give it all a good mix until well incorporated. Into a separate bowl sift together the ground almonds and icing sugar a few times, this is to remove any big lumps that may be in the ground almonds. Once you’ve sifted them together, you can then add the dry mix to the coloured egg whites and give it all a good mix until everything is combined, set aside until needed later on.

Into a small saucepan, place the water and sugar and place a medium-high heat, until it achieves 118c/. Into a clean mixing bowl (I opted to use my stand mixer bowl), place the egg whites and whisk them up until they are frothy, then add the sugar and whisk until its incorporated and has reached soft peaks. After that pour in the sugar/water mixture (make sure you turn your mixer speed down to the lowest setting, getting this mixture on your skin would result in a burn, so be extra careful. Pour the hot mixture down the side of your bowl, avoiding contact with the whisk). On wall of the hot mixture is in the egg whites, crank the speed up to high and whisk until the mixture is smooth and glossy and the bottom of the bowl will be cool enough to touch.

Now that you’ve got your meringue mixture and coloured almond mixture, you can combine the two. Simply spoon about 1/3 of the meringue mixture in and fold it in until it’s fully incorporated, then repeat with the remaining 2/3 of meringue. The mixture will change in colour and consistency, this is normal, it’s a sign that the ingredients are combined. Give the bowl a good scrape down, just to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully worked in from earlier on. The place the macaron batter into a piping bag.

Make sure all of your baking trays are lined with greaseproof/parchment, the. You can snip the end off of the piping bag and start to pipe out the macarons, i recommend you download a free template offline and print it off, unless you’re confident. Pipe out however many you can get on your tray, then tap the tray on the countertop, this will bring any air bubbles to the surface, then leave these for 30-60!minutes, or until a skin has formed on top of the, macarons (simply touch the top and if mixture sticks to your finger, it’s not ready). While you wait for them to dry, preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f.

Once the macarons are ready, you can place them in the oven and bake them off for around 12 minutes (give or take a few minutes, they shouldn’t colour very much). Once out of oven, you can take the parchment/greaseproof off the baking tray an allow them to cool fully before removing from the greaseproof/parchment.

Now that the macarons are made, it’s time to start on the cake. This isn’t your typical lemon cake, it’s a lemon velvet cake – if you like a strong lemon flavour, this is the cake for you.

Do some prep work before you start baking. Weigh up your ingredients, preheat your oven and prepare your cake tins if they need it.

To start on the cake, you’ll want to get yourself a large mixing bowl and place in the butter and sugar, then beat them together until they are well combined. Scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl, this is just to help incorporate any bits that may no have been fully worked in earlier on. The next stage is to add the eggs in, one at a time beating well in-between each addition, try not to add more than one at a time, otherwise you may scramble the mixture and this isn’t ideal (if you do happen to scramble the mixture, it’s not the end of the world. Simply add a tablespoon of the flour you’ve already weighed out).

Next you’ll want to add the colouring and flavourings, for me this is lemon yellow by Wilton and I’m flavouring my cakes with lemon zest, add these into the mixture and beat them until they are fully incorporated. Give your bowl another good scraping down.

Now you can start adding your dry and wet ingredients, don’t forget to start and finish with the dry ingredients, once they are all fully incorporated, give your bowl a final good scrape down. Then you can add in the bicarbonate of soda and then pour over the vinegar and allow to fizzle, then give it one last mix, just to work in the raising agent.

Take your cake batter and weigh it, the take this amount and divide by 3 and then weigh that exact amount into each cake tin. This is my preferred method of dividing the cake batter but feel free to eyeball it and guess how much is in each tin. Bake in your preheated oven for 25-27 minutes (or until a tester comes out clean).

While your cakes are in the oven baking, this is the ideal time to make your buttercream and simple syrup. To make the buttercream, place your butter into a mixing bowl and beat for a couple minutes until its softer and more spreadable, then scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, add in your first half of icing sugar then give it a good mix for a few minutes, then scrape down the bowl again and repeat with the remaining icing sugar. Once the second half of icing sugar is added and fully incorporated, add in the vanilla extract and mix until fully mixed in, set aside until needed later on.

For the simple syrup place the water, lemon juice and sugar into a small-medium saucepan and place on a medium-high heat and allow to come to a boil, then leave to cool down fully before use.

Once the cakes are fully baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool down fully.

Once the cakes are fully cooled down, you can then level the top off each cake and give them all a generous brushing of the lemon simple syrup (using lemon will only enhance the lemon flavour, great if you like a strong lemon flavour). You can then layer the cakes together with a good amount of the vanilla buttercream, once layered/stacked you can then give the cake a crumb coat, this is just a thin layer of buttercream that will lock in the crumbs and not ruin your final layer of buttercream. Chill in the fridge for 30-45 minutes or until firm to the touch.

To finish the cake, colour your buttercream into 3 colours. I opted to go with 3 different shades of purple, I start with the lightest at the bottom and finish with the darkest on top, pipe equals amounts of each onto the cake, then smooth it all out as best I can with my cake scraper, you may need to scrape the excess buttercream onto some greaseproof paper and if there are any gaps/spaces, fill them in and smooth them off until you’re happy.

You can finish the cake however you like but i piped rosettes on top (and topped them with macarons) and a white chocolate drip, the drip is optional. For the chocolate drip, I place my double cream into a saucepan and place a low-medium heat just until it’s almost boiled. Pour the hot cream over your white chcolate, allow it to sit for 1 minute, then stir until its smooth, transfer into a piping bag and use from there.

Macarons:

150g Ground almonds.

150g Icing sugar.

55g Egg whites.

38g Water.

150g Granulated sugar.

55g Egg whites.

10g Granulated sugar.

Lemon Velvet Cake:

90g Butter.

225g Granulated sugar.

2 Eggs.

Zest of 3-4 lemons.

Yellow food paste.

180ml Buttermilk.

220g Plain flour.

1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda.

2 tbsp White vinegar.

Simple Syrup:

200ml Lemon juice.

100ml Water.

300ml granulated sugar.

Buttercream:

500g Butter.

1kg Icing sugar.

Whiter Chocolate Drip:

25ml Double cream.

25g White chocolate.

Maple Bacon Cupcakes

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

This is singlehandedly one of the most bizarre flavour combinations i’ve done on my blog or YouTube channel… However it works really well. If you haven’t tried these before and like something a little different, this is the recipe for you.

To make the bacon candied, you’ll want to take your rashers of bacon and give each side a coating with light brown sugar, then place on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes at 160˚c/320˚f. Once done, transfer to a plate and allow to cool fully. Keep enough bacon back to place a small piece on top of each cupcake (1 piece for 6 cupcakes or 2 pieces for 12 cupcakes).

The bacon isn’t just your standard type you’d have on your fry up – it been candied, which adds a different flavour and makes it sweet, savour and bacon-y. The first bite is a little confusing as you’re not expecting it to be sweet but it hits you with the sweet, the savoury and maple flavour. I used quite a lot of maple syrup in the recipe but it balances well with the bacon and adds a distinct flavour of its own (which isn’t a bad thing, it all ties together and turns out well).

The cupcake isn’t too different to my usual recipe, it uses light brown sugar over granulated white sugar (to add a certain caramel-y flavour to it, this works wickedly well with the flavours) and the buttercream isn’t a basic buttercream (butter, icing sugar and favouring), it’s my favourite Italian buttercream, which is richer and smoother and not overly sweet compared to a basic buttercream.

Making the cupcakes isn’t overly hard, you’ll want to use the creaming method to mix the cake. This is where you start by adding the butter and sugar into your mixing bowl and beating the two together until they are very well incorporated, you can tell when this stage is done as the mixture will be lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency – this can take up to 5 minutes using an electric mixer (stand or hand). Once the butter and sugar are light and fluffy, you can then add your eggs and maple syrup, beating well in-between each addition. Once the eggs and maple syrup have been fully incorporated, you can give the bowl a quick scrape down (this is just to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully worked in).

Next comes adding the plain flour, baking powder and salt but make sure you pass it through a sieve first to remove any lumps that may be in the dry ingredients. Once in the bowl, mix them in to incorporate on a medium speed. Be careful not to over mix the cake batter at this stage, otherwise the cakes will turn out tougher in texture. Once your dry ingredients are just about incorporated, add in your chopped bacon and mix again just enough to fairly distribute the bacon in the cake batter.

Now that you’ve got your batter done, you can divide it between your cupcake cases. You can fill a piping bag with the cake batter and pipe an equal amount into each case or using two spoons, spooning equal amounts into each case, then place into your preheated oven and bake for 20-22 minutes (or until well risen and a tester comes out clean). Allow to cool fully before finishing them.

The buttercream takes a little longer to make but is totally worth it. Start by placing the water and sugar into a small saucepan over a medium-high heat until it reaches 121˚c/250˚f – this takes about 5-7 minutes. While you wait for the water and sugar to come to temperature, you can place your egg and egg yolks into a mixing bowl and beat them together until lighter in colour and consistency – this doesn’t take very long. Once the sugar water mixture has come to temperature and your egg mixture is ready, you can slowly and steadily start to pour the hot sugar water mixture into the egg mixture – do this on the lowest speed your mixer can go. Once all the liquid has been added, switch the mixer onto high speed and mix until you can touch the bottom of your bowl. Once the bowl is cooled down enough, start to add your butter a little at a time, allowing it to beat in well – once all the butter has been added it will look sort of like butter but this is normal, once it’s flavoured and placed into a piping bag it doesn’t look so much like butter. Once all the butter has been added, feel free to flavour it with some maple syrup, you can add more or less to suit your preference.

To finish the cupcakes, you’ll want to place your buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a nozzle (I opted for my favourite open star tip but use whatever you prefer). Then go ahead and pipe the buttercream onto each cupcake, then top with a piece of bacon and optionally, drizzle over some more maple syrup.

So that’s my recipe for maple bacon cupcakes, I hope you enjoy. Don’t forget to let me know if you make one of my recipes. Don’t forget to check out my social medias and YouTube channel.

Ingredients:

Candied Bacon:

10 Rashers of bacon.

100g Light brown sugar.

Cupcake:

175g Butter.

175g Light brown sugar.

2 eggs.

45-60ml Maple syrup.

175g Plain flour.

1 tsp Baking powder.

1/2 tsp Salt.

8 Rashers of bacon, chopped.

Buttercream:

35g Water.

125g Granulated white sugar.

1 Egg.

2 Egg yolks.

250g Butter.

Maple syrup (flavour to suit you).

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