Variations on a Theme: Lemon Curd Sponge (Wheat Free)

It's that time of year again: my mother's birthday.

Every year my mother wants something lemony or orangey for her birthday cake, and so every year I oblige. Last year I made a cake dinosaur for the fun of it, this year I was a little more modest due to time and financial constraints.

I unfortunately have no photographs of this cake, but this is a fairly standard home cooking cake. Not to undermine it in any way, because it is delicious.


FREE FROM
☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy (use ingredients in italics for a dairy-free version)
☒ Eggs
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

For two 8 or 9  inch (20 or 23 centimeter) round sandwich cakes

• 7 ounces (200 grammes) spelt flour
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) cornflour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 5 medium eggs, at room temperature
• 2½ ounces (70 grammes) soft brown sugar
• 5 ounces (140 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 2½ ounces (70 grammes) sunflower oil
• 2½ ounces (70 grammes) butter or block margarine
• Juice and zest of 2 lemons

For filling, crumb coat and icing:

• Juice and zest of 1 lemon
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornflour
• 1 tablespoon butter (15 grammes), at room temperature

For chocolate and walnut decoration:

• Icing sugar

HOW-TO:

First, prepare the cakes:

• Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4, or moderate).
• Prepare the cake mixture as per the basic sponge recipe, and pour into two greased and floured 9 inch (23 centimeter) cake tins. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes until ready. Allow to cool completely in tins.
• Once cool, turn one cake upside down to use as the base. Spread the lemon curd on the bottom layer and put the other cake on top.

Then, prepare the lemon curd:

• Make the lemon juice up to 2 fluid ounces (55 millilitres) with some cold water. Place in the saucepan with the sugar and zest and heat gently until the sugar has melted.
• In a small cup, mix the cornflour with a tablespoon of water to make a slurry. Take the lemon and sugar mixture off the head and stir in the butter until melted.
• Add the cornflour slurry and mix thoroughly. Return to the heat and cook gently until a thick curd is achieved.
• Remove from heat and allow to cool completely.

Assemble the masterpiece:

• Sprinkle icing sugar over the top for decoration.

This was fairly delicious. Hopefully when I make it again I shall take photographic evidence...

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: A Cautionary Tale on the Dangers of Novelty Cakes: The Dinnersaurus

American Style Pancakes... also known as drop scones, ssh. (Wheat Free)

Continuing the whole white spelt flour drought saga:

Today I rang Odlums, Doves Farm and Hildegard Health to ask where the Hell has all the white spelt flour gone and why hasn't it been available for the last 6 weeks. Every one of the lovely assistants on the phone replied with:

"I'm very sorry, but we've been having difficulty with the suppliers and we won't be getting any white spelt flour before the end of May."

Which got me thinking, what if your business relies on baking with white spelt flour? You've just lost over a month of business right there. I'm sure they all found other outlets... I hope at least.

So, anything that involves white flour is off the list for now so I've been eating a lot of wholemeal recently. Luckily, the wholemeal spelt flour that I buy is quite light and mild and you can get away with it to an extent in things like cake with a strong flavour (chocolate, coffee, toffee etc.) or bread products. Back to the business of the day!

I woke up this morning and got a hankering for some fluffy American style pancakes. This doesn't happen very often, but when it does I refer to a good old fashioned British classic, the drop scone. Because, I have discovered by comparing recipes, American style pancakes and drop scones are almost exactly the same recipe. The only difference is that pancakes have a little more raising agent.

The trick to making nice fluffy pancakes is the heat of the pan. You want it about a medium heat: too hot and the pancakes will get too crusty on the outside but won't cook through the middle, leading to crunchy soggy pancakes. Too cold and the pancakes will take too long on the pan and dry out. The first pancake or two may have to be sacrificed to getting the pan the right temperature.

These should be enjoyed with a little pat of butter (real butter, seriously) and a drizzling of maple syrup, golden syrup, honey or agave nectar; basically anything sweet and runny.

FREE FROM
☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy (use ingredients in italics for a dairy-free version)
☒ Eggs
☒ Refined sugar products
☒ Cocoa products

INGREDIMENTS

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) spelt flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cornflour
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) baking powder
• 1 medium egg 
• 4 fluid ounces (120 millilitres) milk

HOW-TO

• Heat a heavy frying pan or griddle on a medium flame and brush with a little sunflower or vegetable oil.
• In a mixing bowl, or large jug with a spout, sieve the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the middle.
• Add the egg and using a fork mix the egg, gradually bringing in flour from the sides of the well.
• Gradually pour in the milk and mix thoroughly until all the flour has just disappeared. Don't be too vigorous, but be thorough.
• Once the pan has heated, pour little puddles of pancake mixture onto the pan. Don't go mad because it does spread a bit even when you've finished pouring.
• Cook until the edges have set and when bubbles burst on the surface they stay burst, as in they don't fill up with wet batter. This should take about 2 minutes if the pan is right.
• Flip and cook for another 2 minutes on the other side. Both sides should be a lovely golden brown colour.
• Pile the pancakes on a plate as you go, keeping them covered with a clean tea towel, this way the steam will keep them nice and supple. Serve as suggested or however you like.

These are a nice carb fest first thing in the morning, but enjoy sparingly. These keep nicely in an airtight container for a few days.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: Jaffa Cake Pops

Minty Mint Brownies of Mintiness, with Marbled Glaze (Wheat Free)

Woo, 80 posts! Only 20 away from the big milestone...

First of all, I would like to announce that I have now in my possession a fancy new Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini which has a lovely crisp camera. Seeing as said phone can connect to the internet, it makes attaching photos to my blog posts so much easier than the way I had been doing it up until this point, which was using my point-and-click camera and uploading the photos from the SD card, which could be fiddly at times.

But back to the recipe.

I love mint. I absolutely love mint. I love mint so much I wish everything in the world could taste of mint. Mint, mint, mint!

And in saying that, I think mint chocolate is one of the World's best things (apart from orange chocolate), which means a mint chocolate brownie is probably infinitely better than than a regular brownie. So, I thought it would be appropriate to mark my return to baking after six weeks of a hiatus with something awesome: I baked a whole tray of mint brownies for a birthday party I had been invited to and they went down very well!

When I was decorating the surface with dark chocolate glaze and white chocolate glaze (half white, half green) I noticed that it had a very camouflage look about it, and thought that it would be cool for an airsofting party or anything army themed.

Also, I have come to appreciate the convenience of recyclable foil tins. This was a large tin so I increased the recipe by half to fit.

FREE FROM
☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy (use ingredients in italics for a dairy-free version)
☒ Eggs
☒ Refined sugar products
☒ Cocoa products

INGREDIMENTS

For the brownies:

• 5 ounces  (115 grammes) spelt flour
• 2 ounces  (55 grammes) cornflour
• Pinch of salt
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) brown sugar
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 2 medium eggs, at room temperature
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) butter, melted
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) sunflower oil
• 3½ ounces (100 grammes) chocolate (at least 55% cocoa), melted and slightly cooled
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) peppermint essence
• NO RAISING AGENT, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND GRACIOUS

For the glaze:

• 4 ounces (115 grammes) white chocolate
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) milk or dark chocolate
• 1½ fluid ounces (45 millilitres) sunflower oil
• Peppermint essence
• Green food colouring

HOW-TO

For the brownies:

• Preheat the oven to 160°C (325°F, Gas Mark 3). Grease and thoroughly flour a 9x7 inch (23x18 centimetre) tin, or line with non-stick baking paper.
• Sieve together the cornflour, spelt flour and salt into a bowl and set aside for later.
• Put the eggs and sugar in a heatproof mixing bowl (preferably glass) and set over a pan of simmering water and stir until sugar has melted. 
• Remove from the heat and beat the mixture with an electric hand mixer or balloon whisk until pale, thick and doubled in size. You could do with without the water bath, but it’s take too long to beat out the lumps in the brown sugar; the heat speeds this process up a little.
• Like with my sponge cake recipe, melt the butter and oil together and pour into the eggs and sugar mixture gradually, beating all the time.
• Add the vanilla essence and then, in a thin stream, beat in the cooled, melted chocolate.
• Using a rubber spatula or metal spoon, fold in the the flour mixture, bit by bit.
• Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, and firmly tap it a few times off the kitchen top to release any trapped bubbles.
• Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until spongy to touch and a cocktail stick stuck in the middle comes out with two or three sticky crumbs are clinging to it.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tin.

For the glaze:

• Melt the white chocolate with 1 fluid ounce of the oil and a few drops of peppermint essence either in a bowl over hot water or in short bursts in the microwave.
• Melt the milk or dark chocolate with the remaining oil and another few drops of peppermint essence in the same way.
• Drizzle half the white chocolate over the top of the brownies, then colour the remaining white chocolate a pale minty green. Use the remaining chocolate glazes to decorate the brownies.
• Allow to set completely before cutting into squares.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: How to Use and Abuse Royal Icing