McVities Jaffa Cake Review Video

Today, I decided to dissect a Jaffa Cake on request to reveal its secrets.....

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Mr Kipling Mini Battenberg Review Video

Today, I decided to dissect a mini Battenberg cake on request to reveal its secrets.....

If you want to see more videos like this one, check out my YouTube page and like my Facebook page for notifications!

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/SweetiePieLMK
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SweetiePieLMK

Fool-Proof Meringue (Unless You're a Really Foolish Fool)

Apologies for lack of photos! That will be amended tomorrow when the camera is out of camera hospital (ie. my Dad's workshop).

How to make meringue; the ultimate question. For something so simple in theory, it is notorious for going very, very wrong very, very often. It's either too dry, or too sticky, or it gets too burnt, or melts all over the oven, sets too hard, sets too soft among other numerous problems.

I have found, however, that once you conquer a few little factors the perfect meringue will materialise as if by magic! The two factors are, like with any recipe under the sun, the recipe itself and the method by which it is made. I know I sound like Captain Obvious, but making meringues can be a delicate process that can be very easily upset if handled to roughly. So, onto my own personal recommendations:

INGREDIMENTS

The most basic formula for meringues, which is a time-tested staple to any cookery book, is 2 ounces (55 grammes) of caster sugar to 1 large egg white; 1 large egg white weighs roughly 1 ounce (30 grammes). That simple. However, there is a small issue with using just these two ingredients: it's not stable enough.

Have you ever made a meringue that collapses after baking, or one that goes all soggy a few hours later, or one that's crisp outside but wet and gummy in the middle? These are all results of the meringue separating during cooking: the sugar, water and protein have not bonded properly, meaning that the protein contracts, squeezing all the water out, and the sugar crystallises. This is bad juju.

The way to stop a meringue from separating is to stabilise it using one simple ingredient: an acid of any kind. The acid breaks down the protein allowing it to hold onto the sugar and water more easily, and then cook into shape while in the oven. For each egg white, use 1 pinch of cream of tartar, 3 drops of lemon juice or 3 drops of white vinegar. That's all that's needed.

If you want to make it even more stable, you can also add ¼ teaspoon cornflour. But, more on that in the...

METHOD
That there are two methods that work every time, no matter what you're doing.

METHOD A
Method A is the traditional French meringue. Because it's still technically raw on going into the oven to bake and needs to cook for quite a while, it is best suited for little meringues or pavlova bases.

• First of all, prepare your mixing bowl. Don't use plastic, as the surface can be too uneven; the best materials to use are either glass or metal. Take some kitchen roll, dampen it with a small amount of lemon juice or vinegar, and clean the inside of the bowl. This is to remove any shred of any trace of oil, which is the enemy of a successful meringue.
• Separate the eggs, put the egg whites into the bowl, and leave to sit at room temperature for an hour. If you can do this step a few days before you need to make the meringue, even better (obviously, keep them in the fridge until the aforementioned hour before cooking). The older the whites, the bigger the fluff.
• Before you begin preparing the meringue, preheat your oven to 120°C (250°F, Gas Mark ¼, very slow)
• Mix the lemon juice and cornflour together, and mix into the egg whites until fully mixed in.
• Using a balloon whisk (for masochists) or an electric hand mixer, beat the egg whites on high speed until they reach the soft peak stage. Soft peaks stage is where the egg whites have turned completely into a dense foam, leaving no liquid behind, and on pulling out the whisk, a little peak is left behind that flops over.
• At this stage, running the mixer on medium speed, add in the caster sugar 1 tablespoon at a time until fully mixed in.
• Halfway through adding the sugar, add in the cornflour and acid (whether it be cream of tartar, lemon juice or vinegar). Continue adding the sugar as you were.
• Continue whisking the mixture until stiff peaks stage is reached. Having added the sugar, the dense bubbly foam that you had should have become a shiny, thick, glossy mass, and on pulling the whisk out of the mixture, a peak should be left behind that stands up completely straight. This might take a while to achieve, so don't feel like it's taking too long.
• You now have meringue mixture to do with whatever you will (see baking instructions below)

METHOD 2
Method B is known as Swiss meringue. This is partially cooked over a bain-marie, which makes it suitable for recipes where the meringue isn't cooked for very long such as lemon meringue pie or baked Alaska. This method is a little trickier, but makes a more sturdy meringue. 

• Like with the first method, separate the eggs, leave them, and preheat the oven. You can slow cook this like in method A, or you can set your oven to up to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4, or moderate) to toast it quickly for a pie topping or Baked Alaska.
• The next step is to set a medium saucepan to simmer gently with about 2 inches (5 centimeters) of water in it. If you're afraid of cooking the egg whites, you can actually bring the water to a rough simmer then turn the heat off altogether.
• Into the eggs, add all the sugar and mix until the sugar is incorporated. Place the bowl on top of the saucepan and mix the eggs and sugar gently with a wooden spoon until the sugar has dissolved. Don't allow the water in the saucepan to boil, or you'll end up with sweet scrambled egg-whites.
• Once the sugar has dissolved into the egg whites, remove the bowl from atop the saucepan and beat relentlessly with a balloon whisk (for masochists) or electric hand mixer until the stiff peaks stage is reached. This can take from ten minutes to fifteen, depending on the strength your hand mixer; using your hand will take substantially longer, something more like the rest of your life.
• Once soft peaks are achieved, add in your cornflour and acid. Continue beating until firm peaks are formed, which is a tiny little bit floppier than firm peaks. Because the mixture is slightly warm, full stiff peaks cannot be achieved using this method; believe me, I've tried.
• You now have meringue mixture to do with whatever you will (see baking instructions below)

PREPARATION FOR BAKING

• Line your baking tray(s) with non-stick paper, like waxed or silicone paper, and prepare your meringue mixture however you want, just make sure the meringue is no deeper than 1 or 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters), otherwise it won't cook properly.
• You could also put the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1/2 inch (1 centimeter) nozzle.
• Cook for at least 30 minutes, until dry. The larger ones will obviously take longer, and I have notes on that below.

BAKING TIMES
Baking times depend on how dry you want your meringues to be. If you want them a little soft in the middle, bake them for the shorter time, but if you like them almost completely dried out, bake them for the longer time. Obviously, the higher you make your piles of meringue will increase the baking time: a thin meringue cooks faster than a fat one, no matter how wide it is. The best way to tell if the meringue is cooked is:

• Fully dry and matte on the outside.
• Hollow sounding when tapped on the bottom.
• Not in any way sticking to the paper, almost as if it's just resting on the paper.

However, for the pedantic, here are some rough guidelines:

• Little meringues, about 2 inches across, take about 45 minutes to an hour.
• Medium sized meringues, about 4 or 6 inches across, take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half.
• Large, pavlova sized meringues 6 or more inches across, can take an hour and a half, but try not to leave it in any longer as it'll begin to colour too much.

COOLING
Take the meringue(s) off the tray and cool on a wire rack to cool completely. Because the meringue(s) is quite porous, it won't take long to cool, maybe 20 minutes.

WHAT THEN?
What you do with your meringues now is completely up to you! Smother them in cream and coat them with berries, or drizzle them with melted chocolate, the possibilities are endless. They're even pretty nice on their own!

I hope this little thesis answers all the questions you have on baking meringues, however if there is any base I have left uncovered please do not hesitate to ask me any questions!

Why Bake Everything Myself?

Before I attend to the business of the day, I'd like to announce that my Facebook page is up and running, as well as my Twitter. Find them at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweetie-Pie-Bakes-Stuff/149724028448663
http://www.twitter.com/sweetiepielmk/

I’ve had a few people ask me over the past few days why I bother making everything from scratch. As I mentioned in my post on homemade sprinkles, there are a few reasons. Of course, one gets the satisfaction of having made your sweets and baked goods from scratch, which is a good enough reason by itself before you consider any others, but also I a) get to control the exact ingredients in my products, which is important for someone living a life with any kind of restricted diet (wheat intolerance, lactose intolerance, veganism, organic living, et cetera), and b) it’s much, much, much, much cheaper.

Take this example. When I first began living a wheat-free lifestyle, I went to my local supermarket to get some shopping. At first I thought “this whole wheat-free thing isn’t too bad: I like rice and potatoes, and sure can’t I get maize pasta. No biggie-smalls!” I didn’t worry too much about buying wheat-free bread because I don’t really eat sandwiches or toast, and making soup from scratch to avoid wheat-based thickeners is no skin off my nose. I then thought “you can buy pretty good wheat-free biscuits now, I’m told”, so I went to the ridiculously titled ‘Health Food’ aisle, where things like dairy-free and gluten-free products are hidden. 

Having found the shelf where the biscuits were kept, my heart skipped a beat: not only was the selection as exciting as a magnolia wall, but a packet of Bourbon biscuits, my favourite biscuit, was €2.49. A few weeks previously, I could have bought a normal-person packet of Bourbon biscuits for less than a euro, and that would have enough biscuits in it to make me sick, but this wheat-free packet of biscuits had eight biscuits in it; just eight. Once I had engaged my maths brain, I worked out that this meant the wheat-free ones were over 30c per biscuit, and the normal wheaty ones were less than 5c per biscuit. I left the shop with no biscuits, and a bad taste in my mouth.

However, all was not lost. I discovered a few weeks later that I could eat spelt and not abreact, and once I had done my research, I began happily baking as I always had; and it meant a much cheaper lifestyle.

Let’s crunch a few numbers. Here is an example of a cost sheet; these are the prices as of today, obviously subject to change:

Bourbon Creams	Euro per packet	Grammes per packet	Grammes used in recipe	Cost of grammes used
for biscuits
Spelt flour	2.89	1000	115	0.33
Cornflour	1.19	500	30	0.07
Cocoa Powder	3.45	250	25	0.35
Butter	2.19	450	115	0.56
Icing sugar	1.09	500	55	0.12
Vanilla essence	3.99	60	5	0.33
for fillling
Butter	2.19	450	115	0.56
Cocoa Powder	3.45	250	25	0.35
Icing sugar	1.09	500	255	0.56
Milk	0.75	1000	15	0.01
Vanilla essence	3.99	60	5	0.33
			Total Cost	1.80
			Pieces	18 – 20
			Cost per item	0.10 – 0.09

Compare that to the aforementioned €2.49 packet of eight Bourbon creams. See? You could even make these cheaper again by using margarine instead of butter, omitting the vanilla essence, et cetera, without massively impacting the taste. It will a little, obviously, but not enough to make a huge difference.

Of course, what you save in money your trade for time. But if you get into baking as a hobby, it’ll become a fun way to pass time and save money at the same time. This allows you to make all kinds of different and interesting baked goods that you wouldn’t even be able to get in the shops; I haven’t yet come across a wheat-free gingerbread man, for example, but I can make as many gingerbread men as my wallet will allow at home.

Now, for ingredients: if you buy a packet of biscuits from the shop, there will more than likely be a long list of ingredients which are difficult to pronounce. Glucose syrup, hydrogenated vegetable fat, humectants, surfactants, emulsifiers, a few vaguely titled ‘flavourings’, dehydrated reconstituted egg protein, and whey powder are all commonplace in mass-produced biscuits, and God knows what else; as you may have guessed, none of these is particularly good for you. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that biscuits and sweeties and lovely things aren’t supposed to be good for you, and are just fine enjoyed in moderation, but there is such a thing as damage control. It’s good to know exactly what has ended up in your biscuits and, if you make them from scratch, you can. You can ensure that nothing but a hundred percent natural everything has been used, you can even make sure that the ingredients are organic and fair trade, if you so please. Obviously, that will make them a little pricier.

So go ahead, become like me: an obsessive baker and saver of money. You know it makes sense.

Bake Sale Madness: Raising Funds for Christian Aid

Last Thursday, my church hosted a coffee morning bake sale in support of Christian Aid Week. It was moderately successful, as successful as a coffee morning can ever be in a city where the Protestant community is very small. We made a few hundred euro, which is a few hundred Christian Aid didn't have before last Thursday!

I love bake sales and church fetes. The spectacle of a table laden with all kinds of baked lovely things is genuinely a sight for sore eyes, and there’s something deeply pleasing about watching folk munch away on cakes and biscuits and drinking tea. Then again, I may just be a born entertainer; the feeding and hosting kind of entertainer, not the face-paint and black spandex kind of entertainer. The aforementioned sight of cake consumption is made even better knowing that the proceeds are going to charity!

But  hosting a bake sale comes with a bit of a crisis: how much do I make? What do people like? What will I make? Oh, the confusion! Do not let your hearts be troubled. Here’s some tips.

• Personally, I’ve found that variety bests quantity at bake sales: people like a selection of things, and one batch of everything seems to work, as opposed to several batches of the same thing. When there’s a variety, people like to have a little of everything and this means a little of everything will be worn away by everyone. If you make loads of the same thing, people will take a little and be happy with that; also, some people might not like that one thing of which you made loads.
• As for what people like and what to make, this is even trickier, but I’ve found three things always go down a treat: chocolate, biscuits, and cake that’s in small form, whether fairy cakes or sliced cakes.
• Always make things that you would eat yourself. If you make a load of stuff that you wouldn’t eat, or that no-one in your household will eat, what happens when you have leftovers that have to follow you home? If you make things you like, taking home leftovers won’t ever be a problem (unless you’re on a diet, then it will be).
• Beware of exotic flavours! I always have to rein myself in when it comes to cooking things for a bake sale, because – as I’m sure you all know already – I like being experimental with flavours. Sometimes, the flavour combinations are a real smash, other times not so much.
• Similarly, mind how dark your chocolate is. Everyone likes chocolate, men and women and children alike, but a tip to bear in mind when it comes to chocolate is that not everyone likes the same intensity or darkness of chocolate. Steer away from making things too dark or bitter: use milk chocolate.

Last time I did a bake sale, I made ginger brownies, caramel coffee slices, and stained glass gingerbread biscuits. I assumed the coffee cake would be more popular, however, the brownies were all gone within the first twenty minutes, and I had to bring some of the coffee slices home with me at the end of the day. I expected that people would punch the candy middles out of the stained glass biscuits, and I was right; the gingerbread biscuits were all eaten, though.

The time before, I made traditional treacle gingerbread (the cakey-tea-bread kind) and mini butterscotch meringue tarts; they both went down very, very well, even though the gingerbread was very rich and spicy. I’m quite stubborn: I don’t like resorting to cupcakes. Not that I mean any disrespect to cupcakes, but sometimes people can rely on them as a lazy crowd pleaser if they’ve left baking to the last minute. I apologise for my snobbery: when cupcakes are done well, with the love and effort they deserve, they are fantastic!

This time, my culinary endeavours are:

• Coconut Custard creams
• Orange Bourbon creams
• Mint Toffee cake

Once again, I’m not shying away from flavour. The ginger brownies will be making a reappearance, as they were so popular the last time, and I’ll also be making some iced gingerbread hearts.

I’ll be getting the next few blogs’ worth of material out of this one day. Not bad! Recipes for all the deliciousnesses will be uploaded over the next few days!