Baking with Elliott

How To Make Shortcrust Pastry

Today, I’ll be showing you how to make a recipe staple – shortcrust pastry. If you want to make a sweet pie or tart, this is the recipe for you.

This is my recipe for shortcrust pastry, its’s quick and easy, what’s not to like?

If you have ever made a pie and followed a recipe, just for it to go wrong and it can really put you off making pastry again – believe me, I’ve been there. This is the must use recipe for all bakers to have in their recipe collection.

The key with pastry is to keep it cool, you really don’t it to warm up too much, this is where issues can start to occur. If like me you have warm hands, I recommend that you use a food processor, this will ensure that you don’t warm up the butter too much. Oh and one final tip is to ensure that once the pastry is made, wrap in cling film/plastic wrap.

Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?

Ingredients:

1 Egg (large is possible, medium will work)

90g Granulated white sugar.

225g Butter, cold.

375g Plain flour.

A pinch of salt.

Method:

Before you get into making the pastry, you’ll want to do some prep. Start by weighing up all your ingredients and getting any equipment you may intend on using.

To start on the pastry, get yourself a small bowl and place in the egg and sugar. Give them a very good mix, mostly until they are fully incorporated. You will know once you’ve achieved this as the mixture won’t be granular in any way, this may take a few minutes to achieve. Set aside once done.

Into your food processor place the plain flour, salt and butter, then pulse until all the ingredients have combined. You will know once the butter has been incorporated as the mixture will have a slightly yellow-ish tint to it.

Next, you can add the sugar/egg mixture that you made earlier. Once it’s all been added, you can then pulse it again until the sugar/egg micture is fully incorporated and a dough has started to form, you can them stop and continue kneading the dough on a floured surface.

The pastry should be smooth once done, you can then wrap it in cling film and place it in the fridge to chill for about an hour or overnight.

There’s not much else to say about this recipe, it’s really that simple. You only need a handful of ingredients and a little time then you have a pastry recipe that has never failed me before.

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!

Black Forest Gateau (2019 Update)

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Today, I’ll be showing you how to make a black forest gateau. This is a classic that will always go down a treat.

If you have ever visited my Instagram or watched my YouTube channel, you will know that this cake is something I make several times a year, in one shape or another.

This cake happens to be my mom’s favourite, so each year for her birthday, I’ll make one. Each year I’m trying to make it different to the last because who wants the same cake year after year? I know I don’t and I don’t like others to either.

You may remember that last year I made a black forest cakewhich was rectangular in it’s shape. That was the biggest difference I had made to the cake since I started to make them 6 years ago… Other black forest cakes I’ve made including black forest cake (2017 recipe), black forest cake (2018 recipe)and black forest cupcakes(check them out).

Anyway, I’m rambling now. Let’s get started, shall we?

Cake:

375g Butter.

375g Granulated white sugar.

5 Eggs.

325g Plain flour.

3 tsp Baking powder.

50g Cocoa powder.

Filling & Coating:

600ml Double cream.

100g Icing sugar.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

Cherry jam (I usually use homemade but this time I used M&S cherry jam).

Decoration:

300-350g Dark/milk chocolate, grated or curled.

Whipped cream (for the rosettes).

Maraschino/fresh cherries (whichever you like or is available).

Method:

Before you get started on the baking, you’ll want to do some prep work. Preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f, weigh up your ingredients and prepare your tins if needed.

To start on the cake batter, place your butter and sugar into your mixing bowl of choice and beat them together until they are lighter and fluffier in consistency and colour.

Scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl and start adding your egg. Add your eggs one at time, beating well in-between each addition. Make sure that when you’re adding your eggs, the mixture doesn’t scramble. If it does, don’t stress too much. Just add a small amount of your weighed out flour.

Scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl, this is to incorporate any bits from earlier on that may not have been fully worked in.

Place all your dry ingredients into a bowl and mix them together, then pass them through a sieve just to make sure there aren’t any lumps. I sieve my dry ingredients directly into the mixing bowl.

Mix the dry ingredients in over a low-medium speed. Make sure that they are fully incorporated then you can then turn the mixer off and scrape down the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl.

Transfer the cake batter into the prepared tins and spread it out as evenly as possible. I used a small cranked/offset spatula to get it as level and smooth as possible but use whichever utensil may work best for you.

Place the tins into your preheated oven and bake for around 30-35 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. The time will depend on your oven, so the time may need to be adjusted.

Once fully baked, allow them to cool completely. Then you can level and trim them in whichever way the cakes may need.

Whip up a batch of the whipped cream, placing the double cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract into your mixing bowl and whip until it reaches a firm/stiff peak. Try not to over mix at this stage as it will ruin the cream.

It’s at this point you can simple syrup your cakes if you decide to do it. I chose to do it on this cake, to help keep it moist and fresh.

Take your board/plate/cake stand and spread a small amount of the whipped cream onto it and gently press a layer of the cake on top of it. Repeat this stage with the next layer of cake but for the final layer keep it plain.

Next, you’ll want to do a crumb coat using a small amount of the whipped cream. This is to lock in the crumbs that now won’t ruin your final coat of whipped cream. Once crumb coated, place in the fridge for 30-45 minutes until slightly firmed up.

Once it’s firmed slightly, apply a generous final coat, here is the perfect time to use a most of the whipped cream up (reserve a small amount for the rosettes).

Now that you crumb coat is done, you’ll want to coat the outside of the cake with the grated chocolate (use whatever you have or prefer). Make sure you use a good amount of the chocolate on the finishing. Once fully coated, place in the fridge for 30-45 minutes.

To finish the cake, you’ll want to pipe out rosettes on top, I piped rosettes all around the edge, alternating between some taller ones and some shorter ones. Top each of the rosettes with a maraschino cherry.

You may remember that earlier in the post, I mentioned about making the cake different each year. There is no difference now and to prevent food waste, I used up some choux buns that I had left over (click here for my standard profiterole recipe) and filled them with some of the whipped cream and cherry jam, then finished them with a drizzle of dark chocolate.

Place on top of the cake and refrigerate until needed. I promise this caeke will always go down a charm – make it for yourself and share with your friends and family!

White Chocolate Cookies

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Today I’ll be showing you how to make a batch of white chocolate cookies. A baking staple, made simple.

These cookies are great, especially seeing as they can be made and completed in under 60 minutes, because when you’re craving a cookie, you don’t want to wait ages for them. I’m just being honest…

I’ll be honest, when it comes to white chocolate, I can take it or leave it BUT in these cookies, it works super well! Adding vanilla extract to the dough really helps to flavour the dough and enhance the white chocolate.

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.

Let’s get started, shall we?

150g Butter.

150g Granulated sugar.

150g Light brown sugar.

2 Eggs.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

350g Plain flour.

1 tsp Baking powder.

¼ tsp Salt.

100g White chocolate cho[s (for in the cookies).

Additional white chocolate chips (for the tops of the cookies).

Method:

Before you get into making the cookies, you’ll want to do some prep work. Start by weighing up your ingredients, line your baking trays (if you do this, I occasionally do this) and preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f. Get any equipment you need ready at this point also.

Into your mixing bowl of choice, add your butter, light brown sugar and granulated sugar and mix on a medium/high speed until they are well combined.

You can then add in your eggs one at a time, beating well in-between each addition. You can add in your vanilla extract at this stage as well, either in with the eggs or at the end, either way will work well, it just needs to be incorporated.

Next, you’ll want to add in the plain flour, baking powder and salt. Make sure that you pass them through a sieve first, to remove any lumps that may be in the dry mix.

Add in the white chocolate chips, then mix on a low/slow speed just until a dough has formed, try your best not to over-mix at this stage.

Give the bowl a quick scrape down just to incorporate any bits that didn’t get fully incorporated in on the first mix.

Take your cookie scoop and scoop two balls of dough for each cookie, roll them together and then place onto a baking tray, then squash down using your hand and round off using a large enough round cookie cutter to help them be more rounded and that will help them bake rounder.

Repeat the above step with the remainder of your cookie dough, until you have no dough remaining.

Bake the cookies off in your preheated oven and bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are a golden-brown colour. Be-aware that these cookies spread while baking.

Once out of the oven place additional chocolate chips on top of each cookie. Then allow to cool on the tray for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooking rack to cool fully.

You can enjoy them while they are warm or allow them to cool down completely and enjoy with a glass of milk or a mug of tea/coffee.

Jaffa Cake Brownies

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Today I’ll be showing you how to make a batch of my jaffa cake brownies, I promise these won’t let you down!

The combination of orange and chocolate is an instant winner, that’s a fact. Most people who like chocolate normally like the combination, it just works. I don’t know the science behind the flavour combination but perhaps someone else does?

These brownies are the perfect thing to make if you have a last-minute bake sale or have friends/family coming over, they are quick, easy and can be customised to suit you very easily!

When I’ve spoken to people or had people comment on my previous brownies on YouTube and social media, they always mention how easy they were to make, in comparison to how they were expecting them to be. Brownies aren’t hard to make at all, but finding the right recipe can be a pain in the backside.

You now have the recipe you have been looking for, it’s reliable, quick and very customisable. They are definitely a fudgier brownie, which is the best way to enjoy a brownie personally. If you like a more cakey version, add ½ tsp of baking powder and it will make them a little more to your liking

Anyway, let’s get into making these brownies, shall we?

Ingredients:

280g Butter, melted.

450g Granulated white sugar.

4 eggs.

180g Plain flour.

2 tsp Vanilla extract.

90g Cocoa powder.

100g Milk chocolate chips.

Method:

Start by doing some prep. Weigh up your ingredients into small bowls, preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f and line your 9×13-inch baking tray with some parchment/greaseproof paper.

Start your brownies by melting your butter either in a small saucepan over a low/medium heat or in the microwave until its fully melted, either method will work well.

Into the saucepan/bowl melted butter, add the cocoa powder and mix it all together until it’s well combined and smooth in consistency. Transfer the mixture to a bowl if needed.

Once the mixture has cooled down a little, add in all the granulated sugar and mix until they are combined. The texture will change, becoming more granular but this will change later in the recipe.

Add in your eggs, one at a time, beating well in-between each addition. As you incorporate the eggs, the consistency will change to become more liquid-like. Once the eggs have been fully incorporated, add in your vanilla and mix to incorporate.

Into the bowl, add in flour but pass it through a sieve to remove any lumps that may be in the flour. Then give a brief mix and add in the chocolate chips and mix them together until everything is well combined and you can’t see a trace of a single ingredient.

Transfer the brownie batter into your lined 9×13 baking tray and level it out as best you can use a small cranked/offset palette knife (or the back of a spoon will work just as well). Once level, add 10 Jaffa cakes and the zest of one orange onto the top of the brownie batter, then place into the preheated oven and bake for 25-30 minutes (depending on your oven, seeing as all ovens are different to one another).

Once fully baked, allow to cool down in the baking tray for a while, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Once cooled down, cut your brownies into rectangles and enjoy!

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!

Vanilla Sprinkle Cookies

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Today I’ll be showing you how to make a batch of my vanilla sprinkle cookies. They are quick and easy to make – what’s not to love?

This recipe is perfect if you’re in a rush and don’t have the time to be in the kitchen for over an hour or if you want to bake with your kids, this is the quickest (and tastiest option).

I have opted to flavour mine with vanilla, mostly because it’s a flavour enjoyed by most but it can be fully customised to suit you (or whoever else may be eating them) and the sprinkles were just standard rainbow sprinkles.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Ingredients:

150g Butter.

150g Granulated sugar.

150g Light brown sugar.

2 Eggs.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

350g Plain flour.

1 tsp Baking powder.

¼ tsp Salt.

50g Rainbow sprinkles (for in the cookies).

Additional rainbow sprinkles for the top of the cookies (added before baking).

Method:

Before you get into making the cookies, you’ll want to do some prep work. Start by weighing up all of your ingredients, line your baking trays (if you do this) and preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f. Get any equipment you need ready at this point also.

Into your mixing bowl of choice, add your butter, light brown sugar and granulated sugar and mix on a medium/high speed until they are well combined.

Once they are all combined, give the bowl a scrape down to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully worked in.

Next, you’ll want to add in the plain flour, baking powder and salt. Make sure that you pass them through a sieve first, to remove any lumps that may be in the dry mix. Add in the rainbow sprinkles, then mix on a low/slow speed just until a dough has formed, try your best not to over-mix at this stage.

Give the bowl a quick scrape down just to incorporate any bits that didn’t get fully incorporated in on the first mix.

Take your cookie scoop and scoop two balls of dough for each cookie. Dip the top of eat cookie dough ball into the rainbow sprinkles and place onto a baking tray, then squash down using your hand and round off using a large enough round cookie cutter to help them be more rounded and bake rounder.

Repeat the above step with the remainder of your cookie dough.

Bake the cookies off in your preheated oven and bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are a golden brown colour. Be-aware that these cookies spread while baking.

Once out of the oven, allow to cool on the tray for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooking rack to cool fully.

Once cooled (or slightly warm), pour yourself a glass of milk and enjoy with the cookies.

Strawberry and Cream Profiteroles

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

The weather has finally started to pick up, so why not enjoy a batch of homemade strawberry and cream profiteroles?

This recipe and flavour combination will hit the spot, strawberry and cream is a match made in heaven combination, that’s for sure.

The base is a choux bun, many people get put off by making it from scratch as it’s pretty easy to go wrong but if you use my recipe, you’ll get the perfect choux every time (I promise)!

The strawberry jam used as a filling is homemade (a video will be coming soon on how to make a couple types of jam and other sauces/preserves) and the whipped cream is sweetened to make it taste even better.

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 baking tray (if you want to, I didn’t line mine with greaseproof paper but feel free to do with yours)and get any equipment you may need ready. Taking these few extra steps can lower the chance of making a mistake.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Ingredients:

Choux Pastry:

300ml Water.

125g Butter.

150g Plain flour.

4 Eggs.

Pinch of salt

Filling & Topping:

500ml Double cream.

50g Icing sugar.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

300g Strawberry jam (homemade or shop bought).

Large strawberries, halved (as many as you need).

Method:

Before you get into making the choux pastry, you’ll want to do some prep. Preheat your oven to 200˚c/390˚f, weigh/measure up your ingredients and prepare your baking trays (as well as any other equipment you’ll need) and get ready to start.

To make the choux pastry, place the water, butter and salt into a medium saucepan and place over a medium heat until its melted, stirring them together well.

Remove from the heat and add in the flour, mixing in the flour in until its full incorporated. Return to the heat and continuously stir it to cook the flour out. You’ll know once the flour is cooked out as the bottom of your pan will have a layer of the flour/pastry there, once you’ve achieved this, take it off the heat and transfer to a mixing bowl.

Mix the choux pastry on a high speed to cool it down. This takes a couple of minutes to achieve.

Once you can touch the bottom of you bowl, start to add your eggs. A little at a time until you reach a stage where the pastry takes between 3-5 seconds to fall from the beater – the amount of egg you need may depend, you may need more or less.

You will notice the pastry become looser as you add your eggs, this is normal, it should be a nice pipe-able consistency. Place the pastry into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain tip piping nozzle.

Place the pastry into a piping bag with a 1cm plain tip nozzle and pipe out small amounts on the prepared baking tray, you should be able to get about 15 onto a standard tray. Press down any peaks using your finger which has been dipped into some water, then egg wash each of the choux buns to get a perfect golden brown on top.

Place in the oven at 200˚c/390˚f and bake for 20 minutes, then open the oven door to remove the steam that’s built up, then place back in the oven and bake for a further 10 minutes then remove from the oven.

Allow the choux buns to cool for a few minutes on the baking tray before transferring to a cooling rack to cool down completely.

Once your choux buns are cooled, you can fill them with your whipped cream and strawberry jam then pipe an amount of whipped cream onto the top of each profiterole and once you have done that, top each of them with a strawberry halve. If possible, add the whipped cream and strawberry finishing before serving (purely for freshness).

Cherry Bakewell Blondies

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

This weeks recipe is for cherry bakewell blondies. If you are unsure or don’t think you’ll like these, trust me. Add these to your list of things to do this weekend, they’ll go down a real treat.

This recipe has been one I’ve worked on for a while, who’d have thought that white chocolate would be so hard, huh? The one thing I did learn in college was about how temperamental white chocolate is. It isn’t really chocolate as it doesn’t contain cocoa solids but we are using it anyway.

The moral of the story, take extra care with white chocolate. It’s super temperamental.

Another thing to remember is, these aren’t brownies. The ratio of butter to sugar is completely different, so they will have different texture/mouthfeel. To be honest, these blondies are more on the cakey side, slightly dense but more cakey, for sure.

I’m using store bought cherry Bakewell’s as they are pretty readily available here in the UK but if you’re outside of the UK you may have a hard time getting these. Feel free to use the next best thing, something like individual frangipane tarts would work pretty well.

Let’s get started shall we?

Ingredients:

200g White chocolate (bars of chocolate if possible, not chocolate chips).

130g Butter.

160g Granulated sugar.

190g Plain flour.

½ tsp Salt.

3 Eggs.

2 tsp Vanilla extract.

60g Cherry jam.

Sliced almonds (as many or as few as you’d like).

Method:

Before you get into making the blondies, you’ll want to do some prep work. Start by weighing up all of your ingredients, line your 8 inch square tin and preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f and get any equipment you intend on using.

Into a bowl, place your butter and white chocolate and melt them over a bain-marie, keep the heat at a medium and no higher (you can also use a microwave on 15 second burst, this isn’t the best method as it can get the chocolate too hot, which isn’t ideal), take extra effort not to get the mixture too hot.

Once the butter and chocolate are melted, add in your sugar straight away and whisk it in until fully incorporated.

Then you can add in your eggs, one at a time. Beating well in-between each addition, the mixture shouldn’t scramble (if this happens, start over).

Next you can add in the plain flour and salt, you’re best to incorporate them using a silicon spatula, this is what I find the best to work with. Once you can’t see a trace of the flour/salt, stop mixing, you don’t want to overmix the batter.

Finally, before you’re done, add in the vanilla and stir that in until fully incorporated.

Pour the blondie batter into your lined 8 inch square cake tin and level it out using your silicon spatula.

Get your cherry jam and add around 5 dollops and swirl it around the tin using a butter knife (you can add a few more dollops if you feel it needs it, I did).

Sprinkle over some sliced almonds, the amount depends on your preference, I went with a fair few but alter it to suit you.

Place into your preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, before removing from the oven to add in the cherry Bakewell’s (I used 5 which had been chopped into quarters), you may need to push them in towards the edge. Place it back in the oven and bake for a further 10-15 minutes or until a tester when inserted comes out clean.

Once baked and out of the oven, allow to cool fully before you try to cut them.

Now they are fully cooled, you can cut them into slices. From this I get 8 generous portions. From the one side, I cut it 4 equal times, then once down the centre, so I get 8 portions. You can cut them however you like, so you get more or less portions, it’s up to you.

Custard Filled Doughnuts

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

If you like filled doughnuts, this is the perfect recipe for you. Today I’m going to be showing you how to make custard filled doughnuts.

This recipe is one of my favourite thing’s I’ve made this year, by far. You get a soft and fluffy doughnut which is filled with a smooth and rich vanilla custard, what’s not to love about them seriously?

If custard isn’t your thing, I have a recipe for jam doughnuts.

These aren’t exactly hard to make, to be honest. They take a little time but they are totally worth it compared to the ones you can buy in the supermarkets or shops (I know of a local shop that sells a basic doughnut like this one for £4.50/$5.70… I think not). As with most bread goods, they require time because they must prove, this is where the gases can build up in the dough and make the bread lighter and taste better.

The custard filling can be made in advance, so if you want to make the custard the day/night before, that’s fine. If you haven’t made pastry cream before, don’t worry at all. The recipe I share for it is super simple to follow and it’s yet to fail me.

Anyway, let’s get on with the baking shall we?

Ingredients:

Doughnuts:

450g Strong white bread flour (not plain flour).

1 tsp Salt.

7g Dried yeast.

60g Butter.

1 Egg.

60g Granulated sugar.

150ml Milk, slightly warmed.

100ml Water, slightly warmed.

Custard filling:

500ml Whole milk.

1 tsp vanilla extract.

120g Egg yolks.

100g Granulated sugar.

60g Plain flour.

Methods:

Doughnuts:

Before you get into making your doughnuts or custard filling, you’ll want to do some prep work. Weigh up all your ingredients, get your deep fryer ready and get any equipment you intend on using ready.

To start on the doughnuts, you’ll want to get yourself a mixing bowl (I’m using my stand mixer, but you can use whatever you’d like to). Into the bowl, you’ll want to place the flour and salt, then give it all a good mix until its incorporated.

After that you can add the remailing ingredients, which are; dried yeast, butter, egg, granulated sugar, milk and water, then give it a good mix on a low speed. Once a dough starts to form, you’ll notice the dough is quite soft and may be a little sticky to the touch (this is okay, it’s an enriched dough).

Briefly knead the dough on a floured surface until its smooth and elasticated (this is a good sign that the gluten is working).

Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, I used vegetable oil but you can use any flavourless oil you have. Cover the bowl with cling film and allow to sit for around an hour or until its doubled in size (this is the first proof, allowing the yeast to do its thing and for the gluten to relax).

Once the dough has doubled in size, remove it from the bowl and knock it back on a lightly floured surface. The process of knocking the dough back is where you remove the gases that have built up in the dough while it was proving the first time around.

Weigh your dough and divide that amount by 10, this was you get a more accurate measurement per doughnut. You can eyeball it, but I prefer to be more accurate, so use digital scales if possible.

Round off your balls of dough and set them on individual pieces of greaseproof paper (which can go in the fryer), it makes them easier to move around later on. Place the dough balls onto a baking tray and loosely cover with cling film, you can then leave these for 30 -45 minutes or until they have gotten a little bigger (this is the second proof).

Now would be the ideal time to make your custard filling and have a clean down.

While you wait for the doughnut to proof, preheat your oil to 180˚c/350˚f. I recommend using a thermometer to ensure that the oil temperature is correct.

Once the doughnuts have proved and are ready, take two doughnuts and place them into the oil and fry off for around 60 seconds each side or until they are golden brown and baked through. Once removed from the fryer, place on kitchen roll to absorb some of the excess oil.

Custard:

To make the custard filling, get yourself a saucepan and pour in the milk and vanilla extract. Give it all a good mix then place on the heat on a medium heat until it almost reaches a boil.

Into a separate bowl, add in the egg yolks and granulated sugar and whisk the two together until they are lighter in colour and consistency. Once that’s achieved, add in the flour (I didn’t do this in the video but it still worked out and didn’t have much of an effect on the consistency or mouthfeel).

Once the milk mixture comes to almost a boil, take off the heat and add around 1/3 of the milk mixture and pour it over the egg/sugar mix, then whisk until combined (this is to temper the mixture, so it doesn’t curdle when we add the rest of the milk mix.

Add the remaining milk, whisking well. Then pour back into the saucepan and place back on the heat and whisk continuously until the mixture is thicker. You should be able to notice a difference as you whisk the mixture, the amount of time this takes depends on the heat you have it on really.

Once the custard is thick and ready, pour it into a shallow sided baking tray or bowl and cover with cling film to prevent a skin forming on top of the custard (the more you can spread out the custard, the quicker it will cool down).

Finishing:

Now that you have your doughnuts fried off and fully cooled down and your custard is fully cooled down, you can finish the doughnuts off.

Take the custard and place into a small bowl and whisk it up to help loosen the mixture a little, then place it into a piping bag fitted with a small piping tip.

Take your doughnuts and make a hole in the side using some like a skewer or a cake decorating tool (like I did), this makes a hole in the middle and on the side, so you can get the most custard filling on the inside, because who doesn’t want more filling?

Into a medium sized bowl, pour a generous amount of granulated while sugar (I have a 500g container which is purely for sugar that I roll the doughnuts in), then roll the doughnuts in, giving them a good coating of the sugar. For extra flavour, you could use vanilla sugar on the outside but that is being pretty extra.

How To Make A Battenberg

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

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).

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!

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.

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