"Jacob's Mikado" Cupcakes: Coconut, Raspberry, and Marshmallows

Mikadoo, doo, doo, push Pineapple shake the tree.... 

Y’all know I love Mikado biscuits. I don’t think I’ve ever done a Mikado recipe on this blog before, but I’ve probably enthused about this all-Irish treat at some point on some blog post in the past. A Mikado, produced by a company called Jacob’s, is a small rectangular biscuit topped with two parallel rows of pink marshmallow, between which is a row of tangy raspberry jam; the whole confection is dusted with desiccated coconut. Although they are available all year round, they are especially popular at Christmas time, where they’re sold in massive plastic tubs to make sure you have enough for all the guests you’ll be entertaining throughout the Christmas season. 

Mikados are just one biscuit in a range of marshmallow biscuits produced by Jacob’s: there are Coconut Creams, which are round plain biscuits topped with a splodge of coconut sprinkled marshmallow (which are either pink or white); and there are Kimberleys, which are a sandwich biscuit made of gingerbread and marshmallow, the exposed edges of which are encrusted with coarse white sugar crystals. And all of these, of course, come in a chocolate coated variety for greater indulgence at special occasions (there’s even a triple chocolate Kimberley, where the biscuit and the marshmallow within the chocolate coating are also cocoa flavour. It’s sinfully delicious). 

This simple combination of plain, buttery biscuit, jam, marshmallow and coconut is easily adapted to all sorts of baked goods, including these here cupcakes! These are a nice vanilla almond cake (a flavour which is commonly referred to as “birthday cake” flavour in the States, sans the sprinkles) filled with seedless raspberry jam and topped with pillowy 7-minute frosting, before being dunked in desiccated coconut. The whole thing is then crowned with a Mikado. 

I make 7-minute frosting by mixing 2 egg whites, 2 tablespoons of water, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, and 8 ounces of caster sugar in a heatproof bowl. I then gently heat this over simmering water until the sugar dissolves and it’s warm to the touch. I take it off the heat and whip it with an electric hand mixer for a full 7 minutes, until it is marshmallowy light and cool to the touch. This is easily flavoured and coloured: in hindsight, I should have coloured mine pink to mirror the biscuits, but the white it also pretty; I flavoured mine with vanilla. 

This is best eaten within three days, as after three days the icing turns all dusty as the sugar re-crystalises. To avoid this, you can replace up to a third of the sugar with glucose syrup. 

Medovik: Russian Layered Honey Cake

Continuing with my Eastern European experiments, I present my take on the Russian classic: Medovik!

This confection appears throughout the former Soviet countries under several similar-sounding names and it essentially layers of honey flavoured biscuits and sweetened whipped sour cream, which is then coated in biscuit crumbs. The biscuit layers have the texture of a soft gingerbread, and the creamy layers are reminiscent of cheesecake.

I discovered it by accident while researching Eastern European bakery—which generally speaking involves varying ludicrous quantities of cream, butter, eggs, honey, and nuts—and thought to myself oooh, that looks like some kind of cross-breed between a cream gateau and a cheesecake. And my my, I was not disappointed: this is one of the tastiest things I've eaten in recent years.

Like many cakes from this part of the world, however, it does take a bit of making: there are several individual layers of cake that all need to be rolled out and baked separately like giant cut-out biscuits, and if you only have one flat tray like I do, it's time consuming. Also, the dough needs to be chilled overnight, and the whole finished cake has to set overnight too, so it takes two days to make.

Although eight layers is traditional, you may have noticed my cake only has seven: the first cake layer I rolled wasn't as big as the others because I hadn't got into the rhythm yet. I recommend measuring your layers to make sure they're all the same size before trimming them exactly.

Also, another adjustment I made is that the recipe includes more cream than I used, because I think the cake here didn't have enough.

INGREDIMENTS

For the cake layers

12 ounces (340 grammes) plain white flour: wheat, spelt, or gluten free

¾ teaspoon (4 millilitres) baking soda

4 ounces (115 grammes) salted butter

4 ounces (115 grammes) honey

4 ounces (115 grammes) caster sugar

Salt, to taste

For the cream

12 ounces (340 grammes) sour cream

18 ounces (510 grammes) whipping cream

4 ounces (115 grammes) icing sugar
2 teaspoon (10 millilitres) vanilla essence


METHOD

First, make the cake layers

• In a large mixing bowl, sieve together the flour and baking soda, making sure the sieve is held high. Set aside.
• In a medium saucepan, mix together the butter, honey, and sugar. Dissolve over medium heat, stirring frequently, until it begins to bubble. Add salt and carefully taste: the mixture should taste rich and sweet, but not flat and characterless.
• Pour the melted liquid into a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon.
• Scrape the mixture onto some cling film, wrap tightly, and chill for at least 4 hours, or overnight for better results.
• Once chilled, preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F, Gas Mk.7) and line as many large flat trays as you have, at least 10 inches (25 centimetres) in size, with non-stick baking paper. 
• Gently work the dough into a sausage and cut into eight pieces. Keeping the other layers covered as you work, roll each piece into a circle, about an eighth of an inch (3 millimetres) thick.
• Lay a circle onto each tray, and bake for 6 or 7 minutes, or until beautifully golden brown and crisp. Cool completely on wire racks. How long this process takes will depend on how many trays you have.

Then, make the cream

• In a mixing bowl, mix the sour cream, vanilla, and icing sugar together until completely smooth and blended.
• Add in the whipping cream and stir to combine. Using an electric whisk, whip the cream mixture until it hold peaks that fall over slightly.

Now, assemble the masterpiece

• Take each cake piece and, using a bowl or a plate as a guide to keep them all the same size, trim them into circles about 6 or 7 inches (15 to 17 centimetres) across.
• Take all the cake trimmings and using a plastic bag and a rolling pin, or a food processor, turn into crumbs.
• On a board or cake turntable, place the bottom sheet of cake. Ice with a generous dollop of cream, and pop on the next layer. Repeat until all the cake layers are sandwiched with cream.
• Ice the top and sides of the cake with the leftover cream, then coat the top and sides with crumbs.
• Pop the whole cake in the fridge overnight, or for best results a full 16 hours. Transfer the cake to a plate or cake stand before serving.

When a Failure Becomes a Success! Old-Fashioned Toffee

Sometimes, things go horribly wrong in the kitchen. It happens to all of us. But other times, things look like they're about to go horribly wrong before you put your Lateral Thinking cap on. I bring to you the results of such an occasion: Old-Fashioned Toffee!

I was making some gingerbread men and popped my usual equal weights of butter, sugar, and golden syrup into a pan. I then completely forgot about it as I got distracted by checking addresses for wedding invitations. Once I got back, it was cooked to firm ball stage; far too cooked to use in gingerbread men. I got quite upset about it, until I embraced the failure and decided to cook it even further to make a hard-crack snappy toffee out of it.

I mixed a little bicarbonate of soda into it to make it more brittle and light, and then sprinkled some chopped walnuts over the top. I had some left over from making the Esterhazy torta.

So, I present to you my accidental recipe for old-fashioned toffee! This, of course, is written as if you're actually making toffee and not salvaging the remains of some syrup for gingerbread!

INGREDIMENTS

4 ounces (115 grammes) salted butter

4 ounces (115 grammes) golden syrup

4 ounces (115 grammes) soft brown sugar

1 level teaspoon (5 millilitres) bicarbonate of soda

Optional: chopped nuts, to decorate

METHOD

• Lightly oil a large flat baking sheet, and sieve the bicarbonate of soda into a small cup. Set aside.
• In a saucepan over medium-low heat, heat the butter, syrup, and sugar until the butter is melted and the sugar dissolves.
• Increase the heat to medium high and boil for about 10 minutes until it reaches the hard-crack stage, or 146 to 154°C (295 to 309°F) on a sugar thermometer.
• As soon as it reaches temperature, remove from the heat and quickly stir in the bicarbonate of soda: it should puff up slightly, but not too much. Pour out onto the flat baking sheet and sprinkle with nuts, if using. If you want even pieces, score the toffee while it's still warm.
• Leave to cool completely, about 1 hour, before breaking along the score lines, or hitting firmly with the end of a rolling pin to break into shards.

Kitchen Experiment: Esterhazy Torta, a First Attempt

Happy 2019, everyone! I hope that 2018 treated you well, and that 2019 will be even better to you. And for my first offering of 2019, I present to you a little kitchen experiment: Esterhazy Torta!

I thought I'd kick off the year with someone I've been wanting to try ever since I did the Doboš Torte in 2017. Decadent confections of Central Europe hold a lot of fascination for me, and this delight from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire is quite an unusual treat. A good start to what I hope is a year of shameless experimentation.

2018 was my least prolific year on this blog since 2016, which makes sense as 2017 was the most prolific year of my blog ever. I suppose I used up all my ideas in 2017! And this year had a punishingly long hot summer, which curbed the baking output somewhat. But I have a lot of good plans for this year, including more videos (I got a nice bit of practise in last year, and learnt from a multitude of mistakes) and designing a cookery book for my own personal entertainment. Who knows, I might release it some day.

But in my own real life outside of the blog, I already know that 2019 will bring at least two wonderful things to my family. Firstly, I'm getting married in June to my best friend and the love of my life, which will be the best thing to happen to me in my life so far. And secondly, I will be an aunt! My oldest brother's daughter is due at the end of April, or the beginning of May, and she will be born in Cavan, where my brother and his wife will be living from February onward.

Once the Christmas feasting is over and forgotten about, I will start on my wedding cake trials. I will try a cupcake wedding cake, and a traditional tiered cake.

But, back to the cake!

Esterhazy Torta is a dacquoise cake, which is basically a fancy French term for a layered cake made from nutty meringues, sort of like macaroons. Dacquoise cakes can be layered with all sorts of things, like creme patissiere, whipped cream, melted chocolate, or buttercream. This cake is made of delicate walnut dacquoise layers, sandwiched with vanilla and amaretto flavoured French buttercream, which is a style of buttercream that uses an egg yolk custard. It's very, very similar to Ermine buttercream, like in my red velvet cake.

Having made this cake, I can assure you it's absolutely not my thing at all. It sounded great on paper, but in reality it was far too rich and sickly. Nuts, vanilla, eggs, butter, and amaretto together is just unrelentingly sweet. If you like sugarbombs, then this is for you.

How I Made this Cake

To make the dacquoise layers, I made a simple French meringue with one egg white and one ounce (30 grammes) caster sugar. I folded in an ounce of ground walnuts, which had been lightly toasted in a dry frying pan. I divided the mixture in four (although, in retrospect, in three would have got nicer, thicker layers) and spread it out thinly into four 4 inch circles. I baked them at 180C for 6 minutes.

To make the buttercream, I gently cooked the egg yolk, an ounce of sugar, and an ounce of milk in a heatproof bowl over simmering water until I had a nice, thick custard. I allowed this to cool completely before whipping in two ounces of room temperature butter to make an icing.

To assemble, I brushed the cake layers with amaretto, and layered the cake and iced the outside. I packed chopped walnuts onto the sides, and feathered the top with some dark chocolate.

How I Would Do This Cake Differently in Future

I think in future to take the edge off the sweetness, I would use some cream cheese in the icing to add a note of tanginess. I would also use dark rum in place of amaretto, which has a much harsher quality. I would also make the dacquoise layers thicker and the icing layers thinner, more like a glue to hold it together. I would also use a traditional glacé icing topping, maybe made with a little lemon juice, to balance the sickliness with some more tang.

Keep your eyes peeled for further experiments!