Key Lime Pie

A couple of weekends ago, my brother and his girlfriend came to stay for a night. They spent the afternoon helping EHH in the garden and so I thought that I had better put together something good for dessert. I had already baked my mini blueberry and lemon loaf cakes for snacks (which my brother ate straight out of the tin!) and so didn’t want to make something cake-y for dinner. I’ve never made Key Lime Pie before and it is one of EHH’s favourite puds so I decided to give it a go.

I found this recipe on BBC Good Food’s website, but made a few adaptations based on the comments on the webpage. I reduced the butter in the base to 100g – which was plenty – and I used half Gingernuts and half Hobnobs instead of all Hobnobs, just to add an extra flavour dimension. As there were only four of us, I didn’t cover the pie in cream but served it on the side instead – so that we could keep the pie for longer in the fridge.

Making this dessert is fairly simple. Pressing the biscuit crumbs into the tart tin does take a bit of time but it is worth it. Make sure that you don’t end up with a very thick section around the rim rather than properly moulding the corners. I was worried about it coming neatly out of the tart tin - but as you can see, it came out beautifully! You do need to allow plenty of time for the pie filling to cool and set fully once it has been cooked – I didn’t leave mine for long enough and it was still a little runny.

Overall, I thought that this dessert was ok. I’m not a fan of the texture of the biscuit base (but I never am – I don’t like cheesecakes etc with similar bases) and I felt that the filling was perhaps a little sharp (perhaps due to using normal limes rather than key limes). I definitely preferred the lemon tart that I made a little while ago. However, EHH loved this one and my brother and his girlfriend also seemed to enjoy it.

(Key) Lime Pie

Ingredients

1. 150g Hob Nobs
2. 150g Gingernut biscuits
3. 100g butter, melted
4. 1 x 397g tin condensed milk
5. 3 medium egg yolks
6. finely grated zest and juice of 4 limes (preferably Key limes)
7. 300ml double cream
8. 1 tbsp icing sugar
9. extra lime zest, to decorate

Method

1. Heat the oven to 160C.
2. Blitz the biscuits to crumbs in a food processor (or put in a strong plastic bag and bash with a rolling pin).
3. Mix with the melted butter and press evenly across the base and up the sides of a 22cm loose-based tart tin.
4. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove and cool.
5. Put the egg yolks in a large bowl and whisk for a minute with electric beaters.
6. Add the condensed milk and whisk for 3 minutes then add the zest and juice and whisk again for 3 minutes.
7. Pour the filling into the cooled base then put back in the oven for 15 minutes, or until set on top.
8. Cool then chill for at least 3 hours or overnight if you like.
9. When you are ready to serve, carefully remove the pie from the tin and put on a serving plate.
10. To decorate, softly whip together the cream and icing sugar.
11. Dollop or pipe the cream onto the top of the pie and finish with extra lime zest.

Lemon Tart

Lemon Tart is one of my all-time favourite desserts but something that I have never attempted to bake before. With friends coming round for dinner and an afternoon to bake, I searched through lots of my cookery books for inspiration and, as I flicked through my ever-reliable Mary Berry’s Complete Cookbook, I came across this recipe for lemon tart – perfect!

Well, almost perfect … Having decided to follow this recipe and having made a start on the pastry, I realised that I didn’t have a big enough flan tin (this recipe required a 28cm tin) and, anyway, I really didn’t need to make a tart big enough for 10-12 people! The only flan tin that I own is 23cm and, after some rough calculations with the help of my ever-hungry husband (EHH), I decided to reduce the ingredients for the filling by one-third – fortunately, these quantities worked perfectly! As the pastry is made using one egg, it is difficult to reduce the quantities, so I have retained the pastry quantities: you can freeze the remainder or make some little jam tarts!!

I often avoid making desserts with pastry, or cheat and buy ready-made pastry, but actually, the pastry was easy to make and worked out fairly well. When making pastry, I follow the Biscuiteers’ tip for biscuits and I roll the pastry between two sheets of baking parchment – which prevents me from needing to add lots of additional flour as I roll and this helps to keep the pastry light and crisp. It also makes it much easier to lift the pastry into the flan tin!

Unlike some of my prior attempts at pastry, this pastry did not shrink away from the edges of the tin whilst at the blind-baking stage – which I think was due to very careful placing of the pastry in the tin, pushing it into the side of the tin (taking care not to stretch the pastry and then trimming the majority of the excess pastry, but leaving a 2-3cm overhang.

However, I didn’t roll the pastry dough thin enough and so it was a little thick (although EHH quite likes this!) and, despite following the blind baking rules, the bottom was not as crisp as Paul and Mary would like! Having done a bit more research on “soggy bottoms”, one of the recommendations is that, having completed the first stage of blind baking (with the baking beans), you then remove the baking beans and brush the pastry with whisked egg (or egg whites / yolk) before returning the pastry case to the oven to continue baking. This egg-wash helps to seal the pastry and therefore prevent the filling from seeping into the pastry and making it soggy. I’ve included this instruction in the recipe below and will give this a go next time that I make a tart.

The filling for the tart was quick and easy to make. However, the end result was a little curdled and not perfectly smooth. Some research suggests that this could be a result of the acid in the lemon juice curdling the protein in the egg – the webpages I have read suggest that you mix all the ingredients for the filling and add the lemon juice / zest last – so I have proposed this in my method below.

Overall, despite all my criticisms above, the lemon tart did generally taste good and my dinner guests really enjoyed it. Hopefully, with the improvements discussed above and included in the method below, it will be perfect – I’ll have to make another to test it out! I served it with a very simple summer berry sauce, which would be great with lots of other desserts, and double cream.  However it would also work brilliantly for afternoon tea!

Lemon tart

Ingredients

For the pastry

1. 250g plain flour
2. 125g cold butter, cut into small cubes
3. 60g caster sugar
4. 2 free-range eggs, beaten

For the lemon filling

1. 6 free-range eggs
2. 200ml double cream
3. 250g caster sugar
4. 4 large lemons, finely grated zest and juice

23cm flan tin

Baking beans

Method

1. For the pastry, place the flour in a large bowl; add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
2. Stir in the castor sugar then bind together with one beaten egg to make a soft, pliable dough.
3. Wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 200C and place a baking tray in the oven to heat up.
5. Roll out the pastry very thinly between two lightly floured pieces of baking parchment.
6. Use the pastry to line the flan tin, trim away any surplus pastry, leaving a 2-3cm overhang.
7. Prick the pastry all over with a fork.
8. Line the pastry-filled tin with baking parchment or foil, allowing it to come up high above the rim to make it easy to lift out.
9. Fill the lined tin with baking beans.
10. Place on the pre-heated baking tray and bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven until pale golden-brown.
11. Remove from the oven and remove the baking beans and paper.
12. Brush the pastry with the remaining beaten egg.
13. Return the empty pastry shell to the oven for another 5-10 minutes or until it is completely dry. Set aside to cool.
14. Reduce the temperature of the oven to 180C.
15. Measure the eggs, sugar and cream into a bowl and whisk together until smooth.
16. Whisk in the lemon juice and zest.
17. Carefully pour the filling mixture into the cooled baked pastry case.
18. Carefully transfer to the oven and bake for about 40 minutes. Check after about 25 minutes and cover the tart loosely with foil if the pastry starts to brown too much.
19. When ready, the filling will be just set but with a slight wobble in the middle. It will be soufflé like when it comes out of the oven, but will sink down when it has cooled down.
20. Leave to cool a little or completely then remove from the tin, transfer to a serving plate and dust with icing sugar to serve.

Easy Berry Sauce

I found this quick and easy recipe for a berry sauce whilst flicking through my many and varied cookery books for dinner party dessert inspiration. The sauce was an accompaniment to a blackberry buttermilk sponge and I did consider making this for my dessert (with raspberries rather than blackberries, given the season). However, I then came across Mary Berry's lemon tart and decided to make that instead. However, I love berries with lemon tart and so decided to adapt the recipe to make this sauce to complement my tart. 

The original sauce was made with 150g each of blackberries and raspberries but I had blueberries and strawberries in the fridge and some frozen raspberries, so I decided to use these instead. 

This sauce is incredibly simple to make and tastes fantastic! It went brilliantly with the lemon tart, but would also be fantastic with ice cream, meringues, pancakes and lots of other desserts! I used the leftover sauce on my yoghurt and granola for breakfast!

Easy berry sauce
Ingredients

1. 300g berries (I used 100g each of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries)
2. 2 tsp cornflour
3. 2 tblsp caster sugar

Method

1. Put all of the ingredients in a medium-sized pan and mix gently with a wooden spoon so that all of the berries are coated with sugar and cornflour.
2. Set the pan on a low heat and stir frequently until the juices start to run.
3. Increase the heat slightly and simmer gently, stirring regularly, until the fruit has softened and the juices have thickened to make a sauce.
4. Taste the sauce and add more sugar if required.
5. Add a splash of water if the sauce is too thick. 
6. Serve hot, warm or cold. 

Blackberry and apple crumble

Just a quick post to type up my blackberry and apple crumble recipe. For me, blackberry and apple crumble is an autumn must! Having made blackberry and almond crumble squares with some of our foraged blackberry haul, next on the list was proper crumble. I love the combination of blackberry and apple, and crumble is just so easy to make.

My crumble isn’t actually the traditional flour, butter, sugar combination, I follow a recipe from The Good Granny Cookbook, which uses oats rather than flour in the topping and so is more like a chewy, crunchy flapjack on top – delicious! By cooking the fruit in a saucepan first and then reducing the juices, you intensify the flavour and prevent the top from becoming soggy.  The great thing about crumble is that there really aren’t any rules – I tend to throw in a bit of spice and whatever nuts that I have in the cupboard!

As I was visiting a friend who has just had a baby, I split the crumble into two disposable tin foil containers: one for them and one for us! These are great: you can pop them in the oven to bake and once cool, pop the cover on and put them in the freezer. Then, when you want to eat, just pop them straight back in the oven to re-heat.   

Blackberry and apple crumble

Ingredients

1. 700g mix of Bramley apples (peeled, cored and diced) and blackberries (I used 400g blackberries, 300g apple)
2. 60g soft brown sugar
3. 85g golden syrup
4. 85g butter
5. 175g oats
6. 60g hazelnuts / walnuts
7. 1.5 tsp cinnamon

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 175C.
2. Put the fruit in a saucepan with the sugar and enough water to cover the base of the pan.
3. Cook gently until the fruit are soft and the juices running.
4. Taste to check the sweetness – stir through more sugar if needed.
5. Strain off the juice.
6. Put the fruit into the pie dish / foil containers.
7. Return the juice to the saucepan and boil rapidly until reduced and syrupy.
8. Pour the juice over the fruit.
9. Melt the golden syrup and the butter together (easiest done in a microwave).
10. Mix the oats, nuts and spice into the syrup/butter mixture.
11. Spread the mixture gently over the fruit.
12. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes until the top is lightly browned.  

Carrot, pistachio and coconut cake (gluten-free)

Flicking through this month’s Good Food magazine, this cake caught my eye. A few friends and colleagues are coeliac and so I’m always on the look-out for good gluten-free recipes: this one looked really unusual and tasty.

Having decided to make this, and made sure that I had all the ingredients, I realised that I don’t own the 24cm cake tin that the recipe demanded. I decided to go with it anyway and split the mixture between 2 20cm sandwich tins. The cakes were obviously smaller and a little thinner than the original, but generally completely fine.

This cake was lovely and easy to make – a quick blitz in the stand mixer to froth up the eggs and sugar and then gradually add in the rest of the ingredients. It did take much longer than the suggested hour to cook though – I think it took about an hour and a half in the end, but my oven always bakes slowly so I have suggested 1 hour 15 minutes.

The Good Food recipe suggested serving the cake with rose scented double cream. However, I was taking this into work and so wanted to pretty it up a bit! I decided to flavour my icing with orange blossom water as I felt that it would complement the other flavours, but you could also use rose water and then top with crystallised rose petals rather than the orange zest – which could look really pretty.

I loved this cake! It was really unusual and had a lovely flavour and moist texture. I love the flavour of coconut but I’m not usually sure about desiccated coconut as the texture can be a bit dry and claggy. However, the rest of this cake was so moist that this was not a problem. I’ll definitely be making this again!

Carrot, pistachio and coconut cake

Ingredients

1. 3 large eggs
2. 200g golden castor sugar
3. 2 tsp vanilla extract
4. 200g ground almonds
5. 100g desiccated coconut
6. 2 tsp ground cinnamon
7. 140g butter, melted
8. 2 large carrots, grated
9. 100g pistachios, roughly chopped or pulsed in a mini processor

To ice:

1. 1 - 2 tsp orange blossom water
2. 100g icing sugar
3. Zest of one orange
4. Chopped pistachios

Or serve with:

1. 300ml double cream
2. 2 tblsp icing sugar
3. A few drops of rose water

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160C.
2. Line one 24cm cake tin, or 2 20cm cake tins.
3. Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract in a stand mixer until frothy.
4. Stir in the ground almonds, coconut and cinnamon.
5. Stir in the melted butter.
6. Add the grated carrots and pistachios and stir until all ingredients are evenly combined.
7. Pour the mixture into the tin/s and place in pre-heated oven.
8. Bake for approximately 1 hr 15 minutes (check after an hour), or until cake is firm and golden on top.
9. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool in the tin for at least 4 hours.

To ice

1. When cool, mix the orange blossom water with the icing sugar.
2. Add extra water until the icing is smooth and pipeable.
3. Place the icing in a piping bag and drizzle over the cake.
4. Scatter over the chopped pistachios and the orange zest. 

Or to serve with scented cream:

1. Tip the cream, icing sugar and rose water into a mixing bowl.
2. Whisk to soft peaks. 

Rhubarb and marzipan crumble cake

It’s been over a month since I last wrote a post! To be honest, I haven’t baked much until recently – I was away for much of July and the hot weather meant that it was just too hot to be stuck in the kitchen with the oven going! However, the gorgeous July weather also meant that my rhubarb kept on growing and I did need to bake something to use it up again!

Having not been particularly impressed with the rhubarb and custard cake I made last time, I decided to have a go at a different rhubarb recipe this time: rhubarb and marzipan crumble cake. I found this recipe recommended online and the only change that I made was the addition of the chopped hazelnuts. I love the crunch and the flavour that chopped hazelnuts give to the crumble mixture on my rhubarb crumble muffins and so decided that they would also be a great addition to this recipe.

This recipe is a definite hit! When making, there seemed to be an imbalance between the relatively small amount of cake, reasonable amount of rhubarb and huge amount of crumble, however, once baked, it turned out beautifully. The cake is deliciously moist and fairly tart and the crumble on top is crunchy and sweet. I took this cake into work and it went down a storm! Definitely one that I will be making again!

Update August 2014
Made this delicious cake again last week and I added 15 drops of Lakeland custard flavouring, which added a delicious sweetness to the cake. The cake took a very long time to cook and was very moist still in the middle. I think that the rhubarb gave out too much juice while cooking and so it would probably be a good idea to draw out some of the juices first. I have adapted the recipe below to suggest this. 

Rhubarb and marzipan crumble cake

Ingredients

1. 150g plain flour
2. 125g butter
3. 25g light muscovado sugar
4. 40g chopped hazelnuts
5. 100g marzipan, coarsely grated
6. 100g golden caster sugar
7. 2 free range medium eggs
8. 1tsp baking powder
9. 400g rhubarb, washed & sliced
10. 15 drops custard flavouring (optional)
11. Custard or clotted cream to serve

Method

1. Place the chopped rhubarb in a bowl and coat with 25g caster sugar. 
2. Preheat the oven to 190C.
3. Grease and base line a 20cm deep, loose bottomed cake tin.
4. Prepare the crumble topping: sift half the flour into a bowl and rub in 50g of the butter. Stir in the muscovado sugar, hazelnuts and the marzipan, then set aside.
5. Cream the remaining 75g butter with 75g of the caster sugar until pale.
6. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
7. Sift in the remaining 75g flour with the baking powder and fold in quickly to form a soft batter.
8. Spoon into the prepared cake tin, and spread level.
9. Tip the rhubarb into a sieve to drain away any juices and then scatter the rhubarb onto the creamed mixture.
10. Sprinkle the crumble on top to cover.
11. Bake for 45 minutes, until the top is golden and springy.
12. Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes and then remove from the tin.
13. Serve slices warm or cold with custard or clotted cream.

Raspberry and Apple Crumble Squares

Another new bake for the weekend!  After a lovely sunny Saturday afternoon wandering around Tyntesfield gardens (accompanied, of course by a trip to the café and a lovely cream tea!), I realised that I was meeting friends for lunch the next day and should rustle up a cake to take along.  Again, I didn’t feel like making anything too time-consuming so I had a rustle through my recipes and found this recipe for Raspberry and Apple Crumble Squares from BBC Good Food Magazine.

I decided to add a bit of cinnamon to the crumble topping for flavour, and added some chopped hazelnuts for extra crunch. I’ve reduced the amount of raspberries slightly – partly because most punnets of raspberries are 150g and also because this amount spread across the top of the cake perfectly.

To ensure an even bake, I wrapped my magi-cake strips around the baking tin before placing it in the oven. As a warning, the crumble layer on top means that it is difficult to tell when this cake is cooked. I baked the cake for just over an hour (my oven always takes longer to bake than recipes say) – the crumble was lovely and golden, but it turned out that the cake wasn’t quite cooked.  Next time, I’ll bake for even longer, covering the top with a layer of foil to prevent the crumble burning.

Even though the cake was slightly undercooked, overall the cake tasted great: the hazelnuts in the crumble added a lovely crunchy texture and an extra flavour dimension and the fruit in the cake was delicious. It’s great on its own with a cup of tea, but would also be fantastic with a nice dollop of custard for dessert. I'm sure that this cake would taste fantastic with other fruits as well: blackberry and apple, peach and raspberry, strawberry and rhubarb, etc.  

Raspberry and Apple Crumble Squares

Ingredients

1. 1 large, or two small Bramley apples, peeled and diced
2. 100g butter, softened
3. 175g golden caster sugar
4. 1 egg, whisked
5. 280g self-raising flour
6. 125ml milk
7. 150g raspberries

For the crumble topping

1. 50g butter , diced
2. 85g self-raising flour
3. 100g golden caster sugar
4. 60g chopped hazelnuts
5. 1 tsp cinnamon
6. Zest of 1 lemon

Method

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line a 20 x 30cm cake tin with baking parchment.
2. Put the apple in a small pan with 2 tblsp water.
3. Cook over a low heat, stirring regularly, until the apple starts to soften.
4. Meanwhile, make the crumble topping: rub the butter into the flour, sugar, cinnamon and lemon zest until it resembles breadcrumbs.
5. Stir in the hazelnuts and then set the crumble mixture to one side.
6. Use a hand/stand mixer to beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl until fluffy – this will take about 5 minutes.
7. Gradually add the egg, beating to incorporate.
8. Gently stir in half of the flour and then half of the milk.
9. Stir in the remaining flour and then the remaining milk.
10. Stir in the apples.
11. Spoon the mixture into the tin, smooth the surface, then dot with the raspberries.
12. Sprinkle over the crumble topping.
13. Bake for 45-60 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean and the crumble is golden. You may need to cover the top with foil after about 45 minutes, so that it does not burn while the rest of the cake is still baking. 
14. Once baked, remove from the oven and leave in the tin to cool. 
15. Once cool, remove from tin and cut into 16 pieces.