Yeast and Wheat Free Cinnanomnom (or just plain Cinnamon) Rolls

In the aftermath of the weekend of revelry, I decided to do something that I've wanted to do for quite some time: yeast free buns of some kind. This time, it's cinnamon rolls!

I have a few friends who are not only uncomfortable with wheat and gluten, but also with yeast. I've heard of a few people of late with yeast sensitivities or intolerances, and for the last year or so it's been a constant trial and error process of finding the best way of baking traditionally yeast leavened recipes without using yeast.

Spelt and yeast have a fraught relationship too, in my experience, so for my own peace of mind finding a way of making things without it would be just great. Last year, I attempted hot cross buns without yeast, but it was less than successful.

As such I took to the world wide web. I googled things like 'yeast free bread', or 'yeast free Chelsea buns' or 'hot cross buns', et cetera. However, the thing that brought the most promising results was searches for yeast free cinnamon rolls: apparently, Americans seem to want to have a yeast free life too.

This research brought up a few recipes that centre around the kind of dough used to make Southern American style 'biscuits'. What is called a biscuit over there seems to be something of a bready savoury scone, kind of like soda bread. Obviously, 'biscuit' over here means a little crunchy flat cake that you dip in your cup of tea, so this was a word I never considered googling to find a recipe for bread.

I compared a lot of recipes for 'biscuits', and found that overall it's a combination of flour, butter, buttermilk, and raising agents. The recipes all depend heavily on buttermilk, which makes designing a dairy free version kind of, well, impossible, unfortunately. But I will be developing that in the future.

Once I had compared and contrasted the recipes, I used the following recipe and it turned out very well! I will definitely convert this recipe into something suitable for a hot cross bun for Good Friday, and I'll also being having a go at something I personally feel a little more familiar with: a Chelsea bun.

IMPORTANT NOTES

• Use a soft touch with the dough: the more you work it, the tougher it will be when it's cooked: treat it like moose meat, or Swedish ladies.
• You need to use all spelt flour, just like you would when making bread: the whole spelt/cornflour mix just doesn't cut it like it does in cake.
• The trick to lovely fluffy and light no-yeast bread is the adage "cold dough, hot oven": all the ingredients must be cold, and the oven must be as hot as you can get it. My oven gets to about 220*C (450*F, Gas Mk.9), which is just about right. 250*C (500*F) would be better.
• Bake them so that they're nice and tightly packed: this ensures that they'll rise nicely and get the height they need.

So, let's get cracking!

INGREDIMENTS:

For 12 cinnamon rolls

• 12 ounces (340 grammes) white spelt flour, refrigerated for 20 minutes
• 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon (2 millilitres) bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) caster sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) cold block butter, preferably frozen for 20 minutes
• 8 fluid ounces (240 millilitres) cold buttermilk

For the filling,

• 1 ounce (30 grammes) soft butter, for spreading
• 2 tablespoon (30 millilitres) soft brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) ground cinnamon
• Optional: 1/4 teaspoon (2 millilitres) ground cloves

To glaze,

• 4 ounces (115 grammes) icing sugar
• Milk, to make up the glaze

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to as hot as you can, about 220*C (450*F, Gas Mk. 9), and grease a 9 inch (22 centimetre) round tin.
• In a mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, sugar, and salt. Mix to combine fully, then grate the butter in with the wide side of your box grater, dipping the butter in the flour after each grate.
• With your fingers, gently toss and break up the butter in the flour until you get a coarse crumbly mixture.
• Using the tip of a knife, stir in the buttermilk. The dough will be completely uneven: sticky in some places, dry in others, etc., but don't worry.
• Lightly sprinkle the work surface with flour, then turn out everything in the bowl. Gently flatten the dough, and fold it over, and flatten and fold until it becomes a smooth dough. This should take about 5 folds, and all the flour and buttermilk will be nicely brought together. Do not knead under any circumstances: the dough will get tough.
• Roll out the dough into a rectangle about half an inch (about a centimetre) in thickness.
• In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients for the filling to make a paste. Spread the paste out on the dough rectangle, spreading all the way out to each short end, but leaving a border of about an inch (2 centimetres) at each wide side.
• Roll the dough into a sausage, wide side to wide side, keeping the dough roll nice and tight. Cut into 12 slices with a sharp knife.
• Arrange the slices, neatly packed, into the tin, and put in the centre of the preheated oven for about 20 minutes,or until nice and brown on the top. I actually took mine out a little too early because I was afraid of them being too crunchy.
• Mix the icing sugar with enough milk to make a thick but still running icing: it should coat the back of the spoon, but it should be able to run off.
• Take the buns out of the oven and, while still hot, spread the icing over the top of the buns. It will melt, but that's part of the charm.
• You can turn them out all in one big piece, allowing people to tear and share themselves, or you can cut around the edges and take each one out. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before eating freshly baked.

These are lovely and doughy, having the texture of a fluffy bread, but without the hassle of yeast. It's obviously not exactly the same as bread, but it's close enough!

Variations on a Theme: Surfing Toffee Tray Cake (Wheat Free)

Earlier this year I was appointed as the youth worker in my church, which means now I'm in charge of designing, maintaining and running the youth group for the young people in my church and the surrounding churches in our circuit. I host a youth group every second Monday, where we have tea and biscuits and do team activities.

This week we had a surfing themed evening because the leader of our church's surfing mission was giving a talk. To fit in with the evening, I made some sea themed cakes.

I also took this opportunity to try out my new recipe for 'fail safe' boiled fondant icing, and it worked a charm. However, the weather was very overcast so the sugar boiling took a few goes to stop crystallising.

Before I started my surfing themed cakes I thought about how I'd decorate them, then I remembered that the Natural Confection Company does sea creature gummies, which would make very quick and convenient sea themed decorations for the cakes. The whole fairy cake versus tray bake conundrum was not a challenge for me: I infinitely prefer tray bakes to fairy cakes. I've never been a fairy cakes person, honestly.

I decided to play it safe and simple with the flavours because they were for teens and tweens who tend to be fickle and unadventurous. I settled on a toffee flavoured sponge with a simple vanilla icing; I thought the blue colour and the little sea creatures would be the main things, as children tend to get excited more about interesting visual things than interesting flavour combinations.

The texture of the cake was spot on, and it was deliciously moist and tender. I cooked the tray cake at a slightly lower oven temperature to get it to rise more evenly and bulge less in the centre; it worked quite well.

Overall, I think this little venture worked out brilliantly. I often overlook the advantages of using premade sweeties for decoration, and I think I'll keep an eye out for themed sweeties any more.  The children really enjoyed them, anyway, which is the most important thing.

HOW TO MAKE

• Make one 7x9 inch (17x24 centimeter) toffee sponge cake following this recipe, using 4 ounces (115 grammes) of soft brown sugar and ½ an ounce (15 grammes) golden syrup in place of all the caster sugar. Bake as instructed.
• Once the cake is cooled completely, use either blue butter cream icing or blue pouring fondant to cover the top of the cake. Streak to make it look like waves.
• Arrange 16 sea creature sweets on the top in a grid, and allow to set completely for about 2 hours at room temperature.
• Cut the cake into 16 pieces using a bread knife in a long sawing motion.
• Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Chocolardiac Arrest Cake (Wheat Free)

This is my go-to for any birthday celebration. It's basically a Death by Chocolate cake, using a name coined by the geniuses behind Homestar Runner which sits at number three on Strong Bad's Bottom 10 List. This name couldn't be more appropriate.

I made this cake for the first time when I was about twelve years old, and over the years it has evolved into something truly beautiful, and now wheat-free!

There's a lot of making in this cake, but trust me: it's totally worth the whole few hours/overnight wait!

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

• 5 ounces (140 grammes) spelt flour
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) cornflour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) ground cinnamon
• 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
• 5 to 7 tablespoons (75 to 105 millilitres) warm coffee

For filling and crumb coat:

• 4 ounces (85 grammes) butter or block margarine, softened to room temperature
• 11 ounces (310 grammes) icing sugar, sieved
• 1 ounces (30 grammes) cocoa powder
• 1½ tablespoon milk or water, or more if needed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

For chocolate fudge glaze:

• 6 ounces (170 grammes) milk chocolate or dairy-free chocolate, finely chopped or grated
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter or block margarine
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 2 fluid ounces (60 millilitres) milk or milk substitute

For assembly (optional):

• Hundreds and thousands, or coloured 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 cold, cut each cake in half horizontally, and cut the domes off both cakes. Decide how you will assemble the layers, making sure the bottom layer of one cake, bottom side up, is on the top of the pile.

Then, fill and crumb coat the cake:

• Cut a circle of card that's the same size as the bottom of the cake.
• Make the chocolate buttercream icing following this recipe 
• Smear a little buttercream on the card circle and stick the bottom layer of cake to it.
• Spread the bottom and middle two layers with two thirds of the filling. Assemble the layers and chill for about half an hour.
• Once chilled, use the remaining third of the icing to spread the top and sides with a thin layer of icing to lock in the crumbs. Chill for at least an hour.

Next, prepare the chocolate fudge glaze:

• In a medium sized saucepan, heat the milk and sugar over medium-low. Stir to melt in the sugar, and once melted in bring to the boil and boil for two minutes.
• Take off the heat and stir in the butter and chocolate. Once fully incorporated, return to the heat and cook gently for a further minute.
• Remove from the heat and cool until thick but still pourable.

Assemble the masterpiece:

• Cut a large piece of non-stick paper, and set a wire rack on top of it.
• Put the cake on the rack and pour the glaze over it, allowing the excess to drip onto the non-stick paper.
• Once the dripping has stopped, put onto a serving plate and, if you like, sprinkle hundreds and thousands over the top.
• Chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

And that's it! Like I said, fiddly but worth it! I hope to have better photos when I get my hands on my Dad's camera: he took photos of this cake that was being eaten as part of birthday celebrations I could not attend.

Chocolate Chip Cookies, finally! (Wheat Free)

I must apologise for my lack of update last Thursday: I have been ridiculously all-over-the-place over the last fortnight or so. I took an impromptu trip to visit a friend up the country in Roscommon, and as such had no access to my kitchen to bake something. I also am pleased to announce that from now-on (as far as I know) I won't be using crappy mobile phone photos, as my camera seems to have recovered from whatever ailment was preventing it from taking pictures. Now, back to business.

If any of you read my previous post on my somewhat obsessive quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie, you will know that finding the secret has been trickier than I first anticipated. However, after months of experimentation, many rubbished batches of innocent little biscuits, annoyance at cup-to-ounce conversions, and temperamental ovens, I have finally achieved what I consider to be the perfect American style chocolate chip cookie:

They're thick enough but flat -- not puffy -- having spread from a ball into a perfect round during cooking; it should be crispy around the edges, but chewy and soft in the middle; it has a slightly cracked surface like a ginger nut,  and has an even distribution of chocolate chips throughout.

I found that my mildly O.C.D nature of having whole ounces was standing between me and my goal: changing the measurements by half an ounce was sometimes all I needed to do, but half ounces kind of upset me. I like whole numbers, and usually whole numbers that have a common factor, like two or three. I get a little odd about numbers having a logical sequence, but it seems that baking is not as exact a science as I thought after all!

Now my search has ended, what will I search for now? I think my next challenge will be finding the best way to make ice-cream with no ice-cream churn; that certainly seems to be very difficult.

So here's the grand unveiling!

INGREDIMENTS:
Makes 25 to 30 biscuits, depending on size

• 7½ ounces (215 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) butter, at room temperature
• 2½ ounces (70 grammes) caster sugar
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) light brown sugar
• 1 medium egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 7 ounces (200 grammes) chocolate chips of your choice, I personally like a mix of white and dark

HOW-TO:

• Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F, Gas Mk.3, or very moderate). Line one or two baking trays with non-stick baking paper, depending on how big your oven is. Make sure the shelves are in the middle of the oven.
• Sieve together the baking soda, salt and flour together onto a piece of greaseproof paper and set aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until creamy with a wooden spoon or electric hand mixer. Once creamy, add the two sugars and continue to beat until fully combined.
• Add in the egg and vanilla essence, and beat until just mixed in. Here is where usage of the electric hand mixer ends.
• Using a wooden spoon, mix in the chocolate chips. Adding in the chips before the flour means the chips get even mixed through, and that the flour doesn't get over worked, leading to tough biscuits.
• Mix in the sieved flour mixture, and gently work in with the wooden spoon until all the flour has disappeared into the mixture. This dough doesn't need to chill, so you can use it straight away.
• Scoop rounded teaspoonfuls of the mixture and roll into balls between your hands. Put on the trays 2 to 3 inches (5 to 6.5 centimetres) apart, and place the tray(s) on the middle shelf(ves) of your oven. Bake the biscuits for 10 to 12 minutes, or until slightly golden around the edges, but still slightly gooey and un-set in the middle. They will puff up during cooking, but this is what you want for the cracked surface.
• To ensure consistent and even baking, turn the trays around through 180° half way through baking, and swap the shelves if you have two trays.
• When the baking is up, remove from the oven immediately. Don't look at them and think 'they don't look very done yet': their slight un-done-ness is part of the process. Take the trays out and leave them on the work surface, biscuits still on, for another minute until they sink back to being thick yet level biscuits.
• Remove the non-stick paper, biscuits still attached, and place on the cold work surface for a further minute. Then remove the biscuits and cool completely on a wire rack.

Witness perfection (i mo thuaraim, pé scéal é). Four months of relentless experimentation and finally I have it. Of course, you can put any filling you want in here, or even flavour the base biscuit with spices or citrus zest; I personally like flavouring the biscuits ever so slightly with cinnamon, or even adding in some chopped crystallised ginger with the chocolate (but then again I do have a fascination with mixing ginger and chocolate at every available opportunity). Experiment, enjoy yourself! That's what baking is all about!

How to Use and Abuse Royal Icing, and Wholemeal Gingerbread (Wheat Free)

 

Recently, I’ve been going through a biscuit phase: for months, I’ve been making loads of different kinds of cake, but as of late I’m feeling the biscuits vibe a bit more. First, I made the dinosaur Kimberleys, which sent me down the road to Gingerbreadville, and then for a friend’s birthday I made some vanilla and chocolate shortbread biscuits that were decorated with royal icing in pretty pastel shades (I unfortunately don’t have photos of these ones: my camera ran out of battery). I first tried royal icing flooding a few years back and I was a little disappointed, but this time round – even after years of not practising – they turned out ninety-percent perfectly. Maybe I was suffering from a case of too-many-mind at the time.

One thing I will say, though, is the exact consistency for flood icing is somewhat elusive and tricky to explain to people; it’s something you just kind of work out one day and know thereafter. The following is the recipe I find works quite well. Obviously, atmospheric factors will affect the consistency and drying speed of your royal icing: humidity, heat, et cetera. Keep an eye on the old barometer, if you have one.

INGREDIMENTS

• 1 large egg white, at room temperature
• 7 ounces (200 grammes) icing sugar, sieved
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice, or water if you don’t like lemon juice.

HOW-TO

• Beat the egg whites and lemon juice together until foamy and no longer liquid.
• While still beating, gradually add in the icing sugar in three additions.
• Beat the icing for a minute or two until the right consistency is reached. Soft peaks is a little too far, but if you reach soft peaks stage just add a few drops of water and beat in gently.

This icing colours well, but bear in mind that the colour will get deeper as the icing dries, so bear that in mind when you tint your raw icing: what you thought was a nice delicate pink might end up being neon once dry. As for the flooding technique, there’re billions of videos online for methods; from piping to painting on with a paintbrush, all the bases are covered.

And if you’re here for the gingerbread, you won’t be disappointed. Check out this recipe for the method; the only thing that’s different is the ingredients.

INGREDIMENTS

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter, at room temperature
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) brown sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• ½ ounce (15 grammes) golden syrup
• 1 ounce  (30 grammes) cornflour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) wholemeal spelt flour
• 1 ounce  (30 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground coriander
• ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
• Pinch of salt 

These biscuits have a nice, vintage kind of feel to them: feathered icing conjures up images of a North English grandma’s biscuit barrel... it does it me, anyway. In my oft-mentioned Sweet Success book, there’s a recipe for feather iced buns, maybe that’s why. It’s a very simple technique that yields very tastefully pretty results.

Dinosaur Kimberleys (Wheat Free)

I apologise for the distinct lack of blogs last week on both Monday and Thursday: my laptop is under going some serious surgery at the moment and needs a while to recover. The disk drive decided to corrupt, and as such a crucial Windows file was made impossible to read, and when we tried to do a direct swap of files from a working XP computer to the laptop some of the registry was deleted in the process and Windows couldn't boot.

Basically, it's banjaxed.

But enough of that! Recently, I've rediscovered my fascination with gingerbread houses. In my pursuits of learning German I've been watching a lot of cookery videos in German, and the bakery staple of that fabulous country is lebkuchen, which basically is gingerbread. The German people - in my narrow experience - seem to have as great a love for the gingerbread house as our American cousins - based also on my narrow experience. As such, my interest in 3D constructions with
gingerbread laminae has been reignited.


But, my musings on 3D gingerbread constructions is not limited to architecture alone, but to how one could make animals and people that will stand up of their own accord. The company SUCK UK does 3D dinosaur biscuit cutter sets that look awesome, but I wanted to try my own hand at this ambitious design. I went through a few ideas and sketches, but then I arrived at a seemingly juvenile solution when I was nostalgically looking through one of my childhood cooking books: a dinosaur sandwich that due to its width will stand up of its own accord. This was the birth of the Dinosaur Kimberley.

For those of you who are not Irish, a Kimberley biscuit is a confection made by Jacob's which is basically two round, soft gingerbread biscuits sandwiched together with marshmallow and edged with coarsely ground sugar (see here for a visual cue and bizarre advertisement). What better and more elegant way to solve the 3D dinosaur biscuit conundrum than by transforming it into a perennial Irish favourite.



I drew a little dinosaur shape onto some card and cut it out to use as a template. You could use a pre-bought one, or draw your own, or use a completely different shape.

Without any further adon't, here's my gingerbread biscuit recipe.

INGREDIMENTS
For the gingerbread:

• 4 ounces (115 grammes) butter, or margarine, at room temperature
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) of brown sugar
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) of golden syrup, or treacle
• 1 medium egg
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) cornflour
• 7 ounces (200 grammes) spelt flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground coriander
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• Pinch of salt

For the marshmallow filling:

• 8 ounces (230 grammes) white sugar
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) golden syrup, or glucose syrup
• 4 fluid ounces (115 millilitres) water
• 3 drops white vinegar, or lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons (30 milliliters) gelatine powder
• Pinch of salt

HOW TO
For biscuits:

• Sieve the flours, spices and salt together into a large bowl to mix together consistently; set aside.
• In another bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and syrup or treacle until pale and fluffy with a wooden spoon, spatula or electric hand mixer. Beat in the egg until fully combined.
• Add in half of the dry ingredients and beat until fully mixed but still soft, then add in the remaining dry ingredients. You might need to use your hands to mix in the remaining flour.
• Mix into a smooth dough that is soft but not sticky. Flatten out to an inch thick (2 centimeters) and wrap in cling film. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. This dough also freezes well if you don't need it right now.
• Preheat your oven to 170°C (325°F, Gas Mk.3, or very moderate). Lightly grease two baking trays.
• Sprinkle the work surface with flour and roll out the dough to your desired thickness. For me, about 1/4 inch (6 millimeters) works well for soft, cakey biscuits, and 1/8 inch (3 millimeters) makes nice crispy biscuits.
• Cut out the biscuits and put on the trays. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until lightened in colour (that happens with spelt biscuits), set on the outside and ever so lightly browned around the edges.
• Remove from the oven and leave to cool for about 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.



For the marshmallow filling:

• Put the sugar, syrup, salt, vinegar or cream of tartar, and half the water in a large heavy bottomed saucepan and heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
• While the sugar is dissolving, pour the remaining water into a large bowl and sprinkle on the gelatine to bloom. This takes about ten minutes
• Once the sugar has dissolved, bring to the boil and cook to soft ball stage (115°C, or 240°F). This takes anywhere between ten to fifteen minutes.
• When the sugar has cooked to soft ball stage, prepare yourself. Have an electric hand mixer at the ready, and pour the sugar onto the gelatine in a thin stream while beating the mixture. Beat the living daylights out of the mixture for a solid ten minutes, or until cool and about tripled in size.
• Lightly grease the inside of a piping bag, fitted with a medium-sized round nozzle, and fill it with the marshmallow mixture. Working very quickly, fill and sandwich the biscuits. Whatever marshmallow mixture is left over can be piped into shapes on a greased baking tray that has been liberally and heavily dusted with icing sugar.

These would be even nicer if they were iced with royal icing and then sandwiched; the ultimate sugar rush.

You are a Pirate!

If asked the ultimate question 'Pirate or Ninja', I would always go for ninja. Jussayin'. I'd also go as far as to make a guilty confession that when the day comes that I am to be married I will not budge over my wish to have a fancy dress wedding where I would be dressed as a pirate. I was a kid when I saw 'The Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl' in the cinema, and I was converted there and then... (although I did go out with a ninja; pirates are in short supply these days).

Okay, I have a confession: I'm a sucker for all things cute. I love cute things, small things, tacky things, kitch things; you name it, if it's ridiculous I'll probably like it. As for what that has to do with baking, well, let me tell you. I was in my local neighbourhood Dealz and I found a kit for making pirate cakes: it came with 24 pirate cake cases, and 24 little Jolly Roger cake decorations. Before I knew it, I had bought them... as if by magic.

I then began to ponder, what does a pirate cake taste like? What do pirates eat, or what kind of flavours would one associate with a pirate? I did a little brainstorm: pirates -> boats -> sunny places -> Caribbean -> bananas -> coconuts -> limes -> rum -> cane sugar -> spices. So much to work with!

In all honesty, I don't like bananas; I like banana bread, but that's about it, so bananas were off the list. I had made coconut and lime fairy cakes in the past, inspired by a cookery book I was given by an acquaintance for Christmas two or three years ago, and that was a delicious combination; but I didn't have the ingredients to make coconut cakes or icing. After some thought, I settled on rum and brown sugar cakes with lime buttercream icing, and they were the shizz.

(I apologise for the quality of the photos: I didn't have my trusty blur-banishing tripod with me, so I had to rely on my shaky hands.)

Following the same technique as outlined in my basic sponge cake post, I used this recipe:

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) spelt flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cornflour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 medium eggs, at room temperature
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) soft brown sugar instead of caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon rum essence (available from the Home Baking aisle of the supermarket) instead of vanilla essence
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) butter or block margarine
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) sunflower oil

I also made a basic buttercream using this recipe:

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter, at room temperature
• 6 ounces (170 grammes) icing sugar, sifted
• Rind of 1 whole lime
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1 - 2 drops each of green and yellow food colouring (I used the liquid kind)

As you can see, it's a normal sponge but I replaced all the caster sugar with soft, dark brown sugar, and added a teaspoon of rum essence with the vanilla essence. This was a little bit of an experimental guess, and although the cakes where quite nice, I wouldn't choose to make them again. The icing was the best bit, being made with shed-loads of lime juice and lime rind; in the process of beating the icing together, the green colour from the rind mildly coloured the buttercream. It didn't colour it enough for me, though: I added a few drops of green and a few drops of yellow to get the perfect limey green.

But my adventures with the pirate cases didn't stop there. A friend was visiting from Roscommon (of all places) and as an afternoon activity we made some pirate cakes for my brother, who was feeling ill. These were just vanilla cakes with raspberry icing, but in true Mr Freeze style I coloured the raspberry icing luminous blue. Why are raspberry flavoured sweets and lollies always coloured blue, I wonder...?

The dragon-smiley faced one in the middle was designed by my visiting friend. It's definitely the coolest one there.

And have a gratuitous shot of the inside of the cake... just for me to show off my fantastic taste in butter-flavoured sandwich spread, and whatever that is next to it on the work surface.

Hopefully the next time I get an inch for pirate cakes, I'll have the right ingredients to make coconut cakes and lime buttercream. Trust me, it's one of the nicest combinations there is for a cake. Don't forget to toast a handful of desiccated coconut in a frying pan or wok to sprinkle on top, because it's very yummy.

Here's some trivia for the day: desiccated coconut in German is kokosraspel. Lidl has taught me something today; and I'm not sponsored by Lidl, I promise.

Buttercream Icing: the King of all Icings

Buttercream icing is possibly one of the most versatile kinds of icing there is. Either spread haphazardly or
piped artistically onto a cake, it still looks and tastes great, and is very quick and easy to prepare. In fact, the only thing simpler than it is good old whipped cream, which doesn't have the same keeping power as buttercream. It's just butter, icing sugar, milk and flavouring

Due to its simplicity, buttercream icing is easily flavoured, easily used, and easily stored. If you've made too much, you can keep it in the fridge in a air-tight box and it'll keep for up to a fortnight (in my experience). However when storing exercise caution: it must be kept airtight, because it's high butter content (and thus high fat content, sorry to disappoint) makes it a magnet for unwanted tastes and odours.

But Anna - I imagine hearing you say - I'm lactose intolerant? Do I have to give up buttercream forevar? Fear not! I have a friend who is lactose intolerant, and as such making cakes for him was a worry when it came to buttercream. I discovered, however, that it works just as well with margarine instead of butter, and water instead of milk; just make sure it's the soft kind, not the block kind. Then, even as a non-dairy eater, you can enjoy the silky creaminess of buttercream icing.

Here is how to make the baker's wonder material.

INGREDIMENTS:
This will easily ice 12 fairy cakes, or ice the top and fill an 8 inch (20 centimeter) cake.

• 6 ounces (170 grammes) butter, softened to room temperature
• 12 ounces (340 grammes) icing sugar, sieved
• 2 to 3 tablespoons (30 to 45 millilitres) milk, or more if needed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence, or essence of your choice: such as peppermint or almond.

It is absolutely imperative that all the ingredients -- including the milk -- are at room temperature, otherwise the buttercream and curdle.

HOW-TO:

• Beat the butter, vanilla essence and the first tablespoon of milk with about a third of the sugar to start with, using a wooden spoon or electric hand mixer, until fully blended.
• Beat in another third of the sugar until fully blended with the second tablespoon of milk, then add the final third of sugar and beat continuously for about 3 or 4 minutes until light, fluffy and pale.
• If the mixture is too stiff to use properly, add milk a teaspoon at a time until it's just right. It should be soft, but still hold stiff peaks when the beater/wooden  spoon is pulled out of the icing.

And that, truly, is it. The awesome versatility in application and flavouring has been hailed and capitalised upon by bakers for a very long count of years. If you want to make buttercream that isn't just plain old vanilla (which, don't get me wrong, has its time and place), then here are some simple tips, taking the measurements of the above recipe in mind.


If you want an orange, lemon or other citrus icing, take 1 whole citrus and grate off its zest (you want only the orange or yellow outer layer of skin, not any of the white bit underneath – known as pith – because it’s very bitter) and add this with the first addition of icing sugar before beating. Instead of the milk, add the same amount of the citrus juice. You can keep the vanilla essence in for extra sweetness, or replace it with citrus essence for extra zing.

If you would like a chocolate icing, replace ½ ounce of the icing sugar with ½ ounce of cocoa powder. This makes a very rich, dark chocolate icing, so if you don’t like it as dark you can reduce the substitution, or use hot drinking chocolate power, which is sweeter.

If you would like a coffee icing, replace the milk with the same amount of very strong black coffee, either made with instant espresso powder or from a filter. If you're extra coffee mad, you can replace the vanilla essence with coffee essence.

For toffee or caramel icing, simply add a tablespoon of golden syrup or toffee-flavoured ice-cream sauce, which you can get from any supermarket. If you can get it, you can use butter-vanilla flavouring instead of the vanilla essence; I managed to get a few vials of such flavouring from Lidl.

For any kind of berry or soft fruit icing, such as strawberry, banana or raspberry, replace the milk with the same quantity of fruit purée (you can make this by squidging fresh or defrosted frozen fruit through a sieve) or add about an ounce of strained jam. Also, you could add some fruit flavoured ice-cream sauce, or milk-shake powder.

For coconut icing, replace the milk with the same quantity of coconut milk or juice. If you can get your hands on solid coconut milk, you can replace an ounce of the butter with the coconut milk.

For peanut flavoured icing, replace half of the butter with smooth peanut butter. If you can get your hands on any other kind of nut butter, you could use those too, such as almond, hazelnut or cashew nut. Similarly, you could substitute half the butter for any other kind of thick, sweet sandwich spread; like Nutella.

The options don't stop there! A while back I made Coca Cola flavoured buttercream on vanilla cakes, which was inspired by a recipe I read online for Coca Cola cupcakes. I tried the original recipe and it was a disaster, but I took inspiration from it to make another cake (at the time I was allergic to chocolate, so this recipe for moist chocolate cakes wouldn't have been for my consumption anyway). The Coca Cola flavoured icing was nice, but in future I think I'll reduce the cola over heat to make it thicker and more concentrated before adding it to the icing.

I hope this recipe serves you well!