Doing Filming for Community Documentary: Be Back When Work Is Less Mental

Hi all!

So, for the next week or so, I'll be up the walls with facilitating this community film project, which is one of my outreach programmes. I want to just concentrate on doing it properly while we're filming interviews and things, so I'll be a bit busy for blogging.

In other news, St. Patrick's Day is around the corner, so I'll make sure to have a few green things for eating and photographing.

Blog soon,
Sweetie Pie x

Dessert Mashup: Millionaire's Shortbread Ice-Cream (Egg and Wheat Free)

Yes, you read that correctly: an ice-cream interpretation of the delicious combination of caramel, biscuit, and chocolate. And here she is, in all her fatteningly glorious splendour!

I'm not exactly sure how this came to mind. I like translating desserts, and last year I made a delicious tiramisù ice-cream (which I will hopefully recreate for an upcoming blog), and I thought doing a dessert mashup for millionaire's shortbread would also be delicious.

This recipe is incredible simple. I used my caramel ice-cream recipe, adding an extra few pinches of salt to give it that salted caramel flavour that's so in vogue at the moment, and swirled some broken up shortbread and chocolate syrup through it.

For the shortbread, I baked a very small batch of the traditional 1:2:3 (sugar:butter:flour) shortbread recipe, using half an ounce per part (if that makes sense...), making it very flat for crumbling.

For the chocolate sauce, I melted together one part dark chocolate to four parts golden syrup, adding in a little salt for flavour. It goes fairly firm on freezing, but is absolutely delicious served warm over the ice-cream.

To make the swirl, I filled the freezing tub as follows: layer of ice-cream, layer of crumbles, layer of ice-cream, layer of chocolate sauce, etc., until I ran out of ice-cream. Excess sauce and crumbles can be used for decorating on serving the ice-cream. I then swirled it all up with the blade of a table knife. I popped it in the freezer to freeze overnight.

As with any ice-cream, it needed to be left on the kitchen counter to temper so it was scoopable, but it is absolutely delicious. I still have some in the freezer, and I'm permitting myself a scoop every few days. I've been so good over the last two weeks: I've lost 5 and a half pounds!

February Afternoon Tea Party: 3 Recipes!

This Monday I'll be brightening up the start of your working week with pictures of what I made for my monthly Afternoon Tea Party event!

I work in a community centre which is run as a "fresh expression" of its mother church (Methodist Church Ireland); a fresh expression church "seeks to transform communities and individuals through championing and resourcing new ways of being church". Through this model, I run a lot of interesting projects from community film groups to my monthly Afternoon Tea party event, which is a social group that revolves around baking and sharing, and is usually attended by women. The aim of this event is to bring people of similar interest together and to give them a social outlet in a non-judgmental and safe environment, but it also gives those who attend a creative outlet.

This month's theme was Valentine's Day, as it was actually on that same day (Saturday February 14th), so I made a selection of Valentine themed goodies:

• Bouquet of spicy chocolate cupcakes with buttercream roses (gluten- and dairy free)
• Dark chocolate dipped strawberries (Dairy free)
• Caramel shortbread with heart-decorated chocolate topping (Wheat Free)

Spicy Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Roses (Gluten- and Dairy Free)

These were made with a nice and simple recipe, which is basically my basic sponge recipe but prepared slightly differently. Using basically the same ingredients in the similar quantities, I prepared them as follows (using the same oven temperature): 

DRY

• 6 ounces (170 grammes) of self-raising gluten-free flour (or gluten free plain flour with 2 teaspoons of baking powder)
• 2 tablespoons cocoa power
• 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• Half a teaspoon of cinnamon
• Pinch of salt

WET

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) caster sugar
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) sunflower oil
• 3 fluid ounces (90 fluid ounces) warm strong coffee
• 3 medium eggs

I sifted the dry ingredients together into a mixing bowl, and in a jug I mixed the wet ingredients, adding the eggs in last one at a time. I beat the wet ingredients well, then added them to the dry, folding gently until well combined. This made 12 cakes, but I only used 8 for the bouquet. There are countless of tutorials online for the method, but instead of a styrofoam ball (which I could not find for love nor money) I used half a red cabbage wrapped in cling film. Did the same job!

I used a traditional buttercream, loosening with a little warm water and flavouring with a few teaspoons of cocoa powder, but instead of butter I used margarine to make it dairy free. I had to use about half a teaspoon of red gel colouring to get this colour, but my food dyes are old so maybe a brand new bottle would need less. Using a closed star tip, I made the roses by starting in the centre of the cake and spiralling out, applying consistent pressure to the bag; again, many tutorials for this technique can be found on YouTube.

These turned out beautifully, and I even managed to get my brother and his girlfriend involved when they expressed an interest in trying out the piping technique! The only issue I had is that buttercream made with margarine can sometimes split, but I think it gave the roses a slightly wild look.

Dark Chocolate Dipped Strawberries (Dairy Free)

 

This is a simple one, and especially so when there's two 300 gramme punnets of strawberries in the reduced section in Tesco. To cover a pound (450 grammes) of strawberries, I simply melted 3 and a half ounces (100 grammes) of dark chocolate with 1 tablespoon of coconut oil in the microwave and dipped the washed and dried strawberries in. I allowed them to set for ten minutes, then gently reheated the chocolate to running consistency and re-dipped the strawberries. I also dipped some cherries and white grapes for myself to eat later with my Valentine (or, in other words, my mate Niamh who was doing nothing that evening).

Caramel Shortbread with Heart-Decorated Chocolate Topping

Using this recipe, I made a triple batch of shortbread. I made such a big batch because I had a bake sale on Thursday too, so I just made on massive batch and donated half for the sale, and kept half for myself. In addition to the milk chocolate topping, I melted some white chocolate topping at a 4:1 ratio (chocolate:sunflower oil) with 2 ounces (55 grammes) of chocolate and dropped dots of the white onto the milk. Then, using a cocktail stick, dragged the tip of the stick through the middle of each dot, making a heart shape. Simples! 

These were very successful, both at the bake sale and the Afternoon Tea Party. The day you make these, the caramel is super chewy, but over the days in storage is becomes a little more creamy and fudgy as the sugars crystalise.

All in all, I was very pleased with myself and how the event went. The women were full of chat, brought along some delights of their own, and a great time was had. I did, however, have lots of leftovers which I'm currently palming off on friends and siblings...

Experiment: Spelt Bagels (Wheat-, Dairy-, Egg-, and Yeast Free)

So, recently I've been feeling a little experimental. I've been doing a bit of my traditional usual stuff recently, so I thought I'd shake things up a bit; I thought I'd try my hand at making some spelt bagels!

Bagels are a simple bread dough product - so the dough is the same dough as a bread loaf, for example - but the cooking process is a little different. Bagels are formed into doughnut shapes and then parboiled before being baked in the oven until crisp on the outside. The parboiling gives them their signature dense and chewy texture, and the baking gives them a nice crust.

But here I where I make a little confession: I absolutely and utterly despise working with yeast. Oh Lord, I hate it. It's just so darned fickle: the room is too hot, then it's too cold; the yeast touched off the salt and died; the activation water for the yeast was too hot and it died; the activation water for the yeast was too cold and it didn't wake up. Too many variables! So, whenever possible, I try and adapt bread recipes for use with baking powder, and this was one such attempt.

I used my go-to bread dough recipe with baking powder, that I use for my pizza base, but I doubled the olive oil to 2 tablespoons, which was partially because I forgot my own recipe, but it worked out for the better. I allowed them to sit at room temperature for a few minutes to rest, and I prepared some boiling salted water, and preheated my oven to 200°C (400°F, Gas Mk.6, or hot). In my oven is a big tray shelf, which I preheated in the oven too, sort of like a pizza stone, and dusted with flour.

Once the dough had rested, I divided it into four and rolled each piece into a ball. I then poked my thumb through the middle and stretched it out to made the classic bagel shape. I should have made the centres a little larger, and in retrospect I could have easily divided the dough into six instead of four.

I placed the bagels two at a time in the boiling water. To boil them, I actually used a wok half filled with water, which gave them more room to float about. Because the dough was leavened with baking powder, the bagels were dense in their raw form, meaning that they sunk to the bottom of the wok, so I had to poke them about a bit to get them to float. I boiled them for about a minute on each side, before taking out with a fish slice.

On my work surface I had a plate of poppy seeds. Poppy seeds are very cheaply available in Polish food shops, and I got a big ol' bag for about 1.75 euro. While the bagel was still sticky from the water, I sprinkled some poppy seeds on top, then popped them directly onto the preheated tray in the oven. I baked them for about 10 to 15 minutes (in batches) and then let them cool. They were a little pale, but I think I had the tray too far down the oven.

I fed one to my mother, and one to my brother. My mother said they were one of the nicest wheat-free bread products she'd had in ages, and my brother just ate the whole thing without complaint. I think that means they were successful. There's a few kinks to be ironed out before I can safely publish a full recipe on it, but so far so good!

As you can see from the photos, they look the part. The interior is dense, and the crust chewy, and they taste just like a delicious bread roll. These were lovely smothered in butter, but I only had a nibble off my brother's one (I'm watching my waist at the moment, only another 4 pounds to my ideal weight).

Strawberry Crumble Bars (Wheat Free)

Recently I've been kerbing my sweetie intake, and limiting myself to one 100 calorie helping of sweeties a day, whether that's from a few different things or in one sitting. I've been feeling wonderful since I started making myself eat at certain times of day, and eat an entire 400-500 calorie meal in one go. I feel so full, and full of energy!

But, I am still getting my baking fix through baking for other people and events: I was in charge of the Tuesday Treat this week in work, so I made these to bring in tomorrow: Strawberry Crumble Bars!

I wanted to knock up something simple that had limited post-baking-bowl-licking potential (I'm a terror for eating leftover chocolate cake mixture from bowls, and raw shortbread dough isn't as nomable because of the hit of raw flour), and I had half a jar of strawberry jam in the cupboard that needed rid of.

These are actually based off a recipe in one of my grandma's old cookery books, but the recipe in her book used blackcurrant jam. These are a very basic Scots shortbread mixture (1 part sugar, 2 parts butter, 3 parts flour) with jam and a few oats sprinkled on top; not really recipe worthy stuff to be honest. But I'll include the recipe anyway!

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Eggs

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) icing sugar
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) butter, room temperature
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) white spelt flour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) cornflour
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) rolled oats
• About 6 tablespoons (90 millilitres) strawberry jam, or jam of your choice
• Caster sugar for sprinkling

METHOD

• Preheat your oven to 170°C (325°F, Gas Mk.3, or moderate). Lightly dust a wide loaf tin with flour.
• In a mixing bowl, beat together the icing sugar and butter until smooth and creamy. Work in the flour with a wooden spoon, or by hand if it's too stiff for the spoon. It will be very crumbly, but that's what you want.
• Divide the crumbly mixture in three (roughly 4 ounces (115 grammes) each), and press two thirds of the mixture into the tin. Stir the oats into the remaining third.
• Spread the jam on top of the shortbread base evenly. Sprinkle the oaty crumble over the top.
• Place the tin in the centre of the preheated oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the crumble is a pale golden colour.
• Remove from the oven and place the tin on a wire rack. Sprinkle a little caster sugar over the top while still warm, and score into 12 pieces in the tin while still warm. Allow to cool completely in the tin.
• Once cold, remove carefully from tin, and then cut along the scored lines with a sharp knife.

These were a lovely sticky sweet treat; I had a nibble off one my brother was eating (he now shares an office space with me). You can use any jam you want, I just happened to have strawberry in the cupboard, but I can imagine these would be lovely with raspberry jam.

Mini Black Forest Cheesecakes (Wheat Free)

As I mentioned in my last post, Sunday just passed was my 482nd birthday, give or take, and I celebrated it in true Sweetie Pie style: with lots of different kinds of cake. I already wrote about my birthday strawberry cream gateau, so today I'm writing about my latest cheesecake experiment: the black forest cheesecake.

The idea for this just sprung into my mind when I was trying to devise some nice Valentine desserts, and also I just like merging dessert ideas. This one is fairly simple: chocolate biscuit base, vanilla filling with cherry jam, topped off with chocolate glaze and a fresh cherry.

 I was originally thinking I'd put glacé cherries and cream swirls on top, to make it extra retro kitschy, but fresh berries were on offer in Dunnes stores so I bought a pack of strawberries and cherries for a fiver. Next time I make these, I'll use glacé cherries; and I will also not take them out of the oven five minutes early (whoops....)

Yes, these sunk a little bit in the middle, unfortunately. I removed the tray from the oven a few minutes too early and it shocked the mixture. But I fixed it with chocolate glaze and a cherry, in the true spirit of my mother's teaching, who told me as a child to fix sunken cakes by "covering them in custard".

The chocolate glaze was also a little firm, in retrospect. I should have used butter in addition to sunflower oil; I have included the altered glaze recipe. All in all, there are many ways I could have made these even more awesome than they already are.

INGREDIMENTS
For 12 muffin case sized cheesecakes

For the base:

• 1 ounce (30 grammes) icing sugar
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter, at room temperature
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) white spelt flour
• 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) cocoa powder

For the cheesecake mixture:

• 8 ounces (225 grammes) cream cheese, room temperature
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 medium eggs, separated
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) whipping cream, or plain yogurt
• 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) vanilla essence, or the seeds of 1 vanilla pod
• Pinch of salt
• 6 fluid ounces (180 millilitres) cherry jam, or mixed fruit jam

For decoration:

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) dark chocolate
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) sunflower oil
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) butter
• 12 fresh or glacé (candied) cherries

METHOD

• Preheat your oven to 150°C (300°F, Gas Mk.2, or very moderate). Line a 12 indent muffin tin with large cake cases (muffin cases).
• Make the base by mixing the butter and icing sugar together with a wooden spoon, then work in the flour and cocoa until it becomes crumbly. Divide the crumble between the 12 cases and press down gently with the back of a teaspoon.
• Prepare the cheesecake filling using this recipe, omitting the coconut milk, replacing the lime zest and juice with the whipping cream (or yogurt), and adding the vanilla with the cheese mixture before mixing with the egg whites.
• Put a tablespoon of cherry jam in the centre of each cake atop the biscuit base, and then divide the mixture between the cases, making sure to cover the cherry jam.
• Bake the cakes in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until set around the edges but still slightly jiggly in the centre. Remove from the oven and cool completely in the tin on a wire rack.
• Once cooled, make the topping by melting the chocolate, butter and oil in a bowl over simmering water, or in the microwave for 1 minutes intervals on the "Defrost" setting. Once melted, pour about 2 teaspoons of the topping onto each cake. Swirl the cake around the coat the entire surface.
• Put a cherry on the top of each cake, sitting it into the chocolate. Put in the fridge to cool and set for at least 4 hours, or overnight.

This is actually a recipe I hope to make a how-to video of sometime soon, so keep your eyes peeled! I like the daintiness of the cherry on top, but overall the dessert is quite tasty.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: Raspberry Ice-Cream (Egg- and Wheat Free)

Strawberry Cream Gâteau (Wheat Free)

Yesterday was my birthday! I was about 284 years old, give or take. Yes; I'm well preserved. And for the party we had a strawberry and cream gâteau!

I remember when I was a teenager, my mother bought a lovely strawberry and cream gâteau from the Baker's Café in Miltown Malbay, which is the nearest town to the field in which I was raised, and it was absolutely lovely: light, fluffy fatless sponge sandwiched with cream and strawberry jam, decorated with cream and crushed digestives around the sides, with rosettes of cream and sliced strawberries on top. There is something absolutely delightful about the squidgy cream and jam in the cloudy soft sponge, and also the classic style of the gâteau, that is utterly satisfying. Over the years, I have remembered it as my favourite birthday cake.

Usually, my brother makes my cake, but this year I broke with tradition and made my own, which was my birthday present to myself, and - I'm proud to say without fear of contradiction or criticism - this was my best cake so far.

For this I used a slightly different sponge recipe: I usually use this recipe, which is sort of like a chiffon cake or a Genoise, but this is a little lighter because it has more eggs and sugar and less flour and oil. It makes it incredibly delicate and light.

I will admit, there is quite a bit of making in this cake, but there's always a good bit of making in a layered cake or a gâteau like this, as with black forest gâteau. It doesn't require any complex techniques or finicky recipes, just fiddling around with layers and spreading jam and cream. But here is how I made it.

FREE FROM

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

CONTAINS
☒ Cocoa
☒ Eggs
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS

For two 8 inch (20 centimetre) sandwich cakes

• 5 medium eggs
• 6 ounces (170 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence, or almond essence
• 5 tablespoons (75 millilitres) sunflower oil
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cornflour
• Pinch of salt

For the decoration:

• 1/2 a jar (225 grammes) strawberry jam
• 3/4 pint (425 millilitres) whipping cream
• 5 ounces (170 grammes) cream cheese
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) icing sugar
• 7 strawberries
• For the sides: grated chocolate, crushed digestives (or shortbread), or sprinkles

METHOD

• Preheat your oven to 190°C (375°F, Gas Mk.5, or moderate). Grease and flour the bottom of each sandwich tin, but not the sides.
• Sieve the flour, cornflour and salt onto a sheet of greaseproof paper and set aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar with an electric mixer on high speed until thick, pale, and puffed up to double in size.
• Gradually beat the sunflower oil into the eggs, followed by the essence.
• Gently fold the flour mixture into the eggs, making sure to keep it light and fluffy. Divide the mixture between the tins.
• Bake the cakes in the centre of the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until springy to the touch.
• Remove from the oven and loosen the sides with a knife; allow to cool completely before turning out onto a wire rack.

To decorate:

• In a large bowl, beat together the cream, cream cheese, and icing sugar until it reaches soft peaks. Divide into two: one half for filling, one half for decorating.
• Slice each cake in half horizontally, and put the bottom layer on the serving platter. Spread with a third of the jam, then spread a third of your filling cream in. Place the top of the cake on top.
• Spread jam and a third of the cream on top of this layer, as before, then place the top half of the second cake on top, but upside-down. Spread the jam and cream on top again as before, and top off with the bottom of the second cake, but upside again. This means the top will be nice and flat.
• Now, take the half of the cream you saved for decorating. Spread a third of this on top, swirling with the knife. Spread a third around the sides, too.
• If you like, at this point you can press some grated chocolate, crushed biscuits, or sprinkles onto the sides of the cake, as pictured. The best way to do this is to fill a wide roasting dish with the grated chocolate or sprinkles, then hover the serving plate over the dish while patting the decorations onto the sides.
• Once you have decorated the sides, fit a piping bag with a closed star nozzle, and fill with the last third of the cream. Pipe rosette decorations on the top, and around the bottom, as shown.
• Slice six of the strawberries in half, and arrange them on the top, resting them on the cream rosettes.
• Slice the last strawberry six times, making sure not to cut all the way through the top. Fan out the strawberry, and rest in the centre of the cake. Chill in the fridge for about 1 hour to fully set.
• Remove from the fridge about 30 minutes before serving so it can come to room temperature before eating.

I was very pleased with this cake, and it went down an absolute treat! I also made some mini Black Forest Cheesecakes, which were also a success. Although, I will discuss those in greater detail in another post.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: Lemon Ice-Cream (Egg- and Wheat Free)