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Home Sweet Home Bakealong #tbc: Red Velvet Roulade
I think I’ve found my baking mojo again, not as far as quality is concerned but at least as far as desire and actual output. This week I steeled myself to make a roulade, which I’m notoriously bad at. The red food colouring made the mixture curdle a bit which was odd. As you can see, it’s bit of a mess, but it’s the opposite of last week’s bake because it’s light and moist. I’ve never managed to make a roulade which didn’t crack and this was no exception. It felt almost too moist but surely if I bake it longer the dryness will stop it rolling? Also, I have a query about Red Velvet. If you’re not putting much cocoa in, why bother at all? Surely you get a better red colour without it. I would have thought that it’s only if you’re using beetroot for the colour that you want cocoa to work the flavours out. With this little cocoa I’m not really sure you notice the taste.
Red Velvet Roulade
from Home Sweet Home by the Hummingbird Bakery
For the sponge:
130g plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
120ml buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
120g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp red gel paste colouring
30ml water
For the filling (I didn’t do this – I just made a lemon buttercream as our corner shop was out of cream cheese)
250g full fate cream cheese
130g white chocolate, melted
50g unsalted butter, softened
50g icing sugar
32x32x2cm swiss roll tin
Cream butter and sugar
Add egg
Weigh out dry ingredients
Mix wet ingredients (except egg)
Alternate adding wet and dry, finishing with wet
Spread onto lined baking tin and back at 180 for 25 mins
Cover with damp teacloth to cool a little, then cover with another sheet of baking parchment and roll up while you make filling
Beat filling ingredients (butter, sugar first then add rest) until fluffy
Unroll sponge, cover in filling, roll back up
Dust with icing sugar
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Join Beckie and me in our Epic 100 part bakealong. Next: tbc
M
A few weeks ago I noted there were lost of little moths around and I was worried they were coming from my baking cupboard so I cleared everything out. This means I’m a bit low on the standard baking items as I haven’t fully re-stocked yet. You’ll be glad to know I’ve not seen a moth since.
So, that is by way of explanation for the fact that this isn’t the next bake on the list but I wanted to make a cake for my Mum’s birthday and I had the ingredients to do this one.
It came out rather dense but not as dry as a feared from the look of it. Definitely needed tea or coffee with it though and works well with custard.
Maple and Walnut Streusel Cake
from Home Sweet Home by the Hummingbird Bakery
For the streusel:
50g soft brown sugar
80g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
45g unsalted butter, cubed
80g walnuts, chopped (I used toasted pecans and slightly less of them as that’s all I had)
For the sponge:
170g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I didn’t use this as I had run out)
280g soured cream (I used Skyr Honey yoghurt as it has similar qualities and I hoped the honey would make up for the lack of vanilla)
420g plain four
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (I used a sachet of Lievito Pane Degli Angeli instead of this and the b.p. It is awesome stuff. It’s a raising agent with vanilla that you can get fro italian delis and it’s pretty infallible)
1/2 tsp salt
100ml maple syrup, to drizzle
For the glaze:
170g Icing sugar
4 tbsp maple syrup
1x 10inch ring cake tin (mine was smaller so I put some in another tin)
Rub together the streusel mix and set to one side
Cream butter and sugar, add eggs
Add the sour cream
Sift flour and raising agent together
Mix into wet mixture
Sprinkle half of streusel into base of pan
Add half of cake mix
Sprinkle rest of streusel
Top with rest of cake mix
Bake until golden and set (50ish mins)
When hot, drizzle maple syrup over
After cooled make icing and sprinkle with chopped nuts
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Join Beckie and me in our Epic 100 part bakealong. Next: I guess I should go back to the plan and do Red Velvet Roulade
M
Home Sweet Home Bakealong #tbc: Cookies & Cream Cake
Don’t fall off your chairs. I’m back. I’m sorry it has been so long. I got put off by the ingredients list of the Red Velvet Roulade and dispirited by the marshmallow failure and, well, I just got out of the rhythm of it all. I’ve been baking, but mainly less glamorous things like freezer cookies and healthier stuff for my other blog www.blandontherun.com
Anyway, enough of the ‘cat ate my cheesecake’ excuses and back to the baking. I went out of order so I’ll come back to the aforementioned Roulade-Rouge. This one is a Hummingbird cake all over. Take a good cake, add a LOT of icing and then, well, let’s throw some cookies in as well. Talk about gilding the lily! It’s good though and really not that hard to make.
Cookies and Cream Cake
from Home Sweet Home by the Hummingbird Bakery
For the sponge:
110g unsalted butter, softened
280g caster sugar
320g plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
320ml buttermilk
3 large eggs
135g any type of fresh cookies from the bakery section (but not white choc ones)
For the frosting (halve this! It’s loads):
1kg icing sugar
320h unsalted butter, softened
500g mascarpone
2-3 cookies, crumbled
3 x 8 inch loose bottomed sandwich tins
Method:
Preheat oven to 170c and line cake tins
Beat butter, sugar and dry ingredients together until breadcrumby texture
Mix wet ingredients
Add to dry
Crumble cookies and stir through batter
Pour into cake tines and bake until golden brown
Beat butter and icing sugar together
Slowly add mascarpone
Assemble cake. Crumble cookies on top.
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Join Beckie and me in our Epic 100 part bakealong. Next: going out of order again – Maple and Walnut Streusel Cake
Home Sweet Home Bakealong 66(?): Syrup Crunch Cookies
I am not sure what number I’m on. I think it’s 66 but I got the ingredients for what I thought was 65 (cookies and cream cake) and then realised that it should be Red Velvet Roulade. So I’m all of a dither.
Anyway. I’ve made these ‘cookies’ twice now. You might wonder why the inverted commas. Well, if you’d asked me for the definition of a cookie I would have included the word said they were round and individual items. Both times I’ve baked these they’ve spread so much that I’ve ended up with several tray-sized ‘cookies’ which had to be cut into sections with a pizza wheel and then proceeded to disintegrate into a sticky, crumbly, tasty mess.
Fear not though (if you were) because Wikipedia suggests that I can still call them cookies. Its definition of cookie is as follows: A cookie is a small, flat, sweet, baked good, usually containing flour, eggs, sugar, and either butter, cooking oil or another oil or fat. So, thanks Wikipedia. I’m now feeling reassured.
*** KLAXON*** I’ve just googled the title of the recipe. I noticed that The More Than Occasional Baker ‘s version looked better and was comparing the recipes when I though ‘well she’s got flour in her recipe, that’ll be it’. Checking back in my recipe book there was flour in my recipe too. I can’t for the life of me remember whether I put it in. So, er, yes. That might be it.
Syrup Crunch Cookies
from Home Sweet Home by the Hummingbird Bakery
Makes 20 cookies or 3 baking tray sized ones.
150g unsalted butter
220ml condensed milk
180g golden syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
180g cornflakes (slightly crushed)
250g plain flour
90g custard powder
2 tsp bicarb of soda
180g porridge oats
30g demerara sugar for sprinkling OR some sea-salt flakes for grown-ups
Melt everything meltable together hen add vanilla extract.
Mix the dry stuff together.
Add wet mix to dry mix and combine.
Distribute on baking trays, a large blob per cookie. Leave plenty of space between them (!)
Bake at 160c for 10-15 mins then leave to cool.
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Join Beckie and me in our Epic 100 part bakealong. Next: going out of order – Red Velvet Roulade or Cookies and Cream Cake.
Home Sweet Home Bakealong 64: Grasshopper Cupcakes
Homes Sweet Home does tend to repeat itsself a bit. With multiple marshmallows and the same breads twice there’s a few times when I’ve thought they were being a bit cheeky. This bake is a twist on a twist though. Having made Grasshopper Slices before they’ve now taken Grasshopper Pie and turned it into a cupcake.
The icing is a custard icing which makes it much less sweet. It tastes great but when you take solidified custard, try to whip it up and then fold it into whipped cream it’s hard to make it look anything less than…er… lumpy. I decided to colour it purple to make it look slightly less unsavoury!
Aside from that, the normal chocolate cupcake recipe and the minty filling are pretty good. For once, I think the icing quantities were almost right. Weird.
Grashopper Cupcakes from Home Sweet Home by the Hummingbird Bakery
Makes 13-16 cupcakes
For the sponge:
70g butter
170g plain flour
250g caster sugar
50g cocoa powder
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
210ml milk
2 large eggs
For the filling:
60ml double cream
60g white chocolate chips
drop peppermint essence
drop green food colouring
For the custard:
330ml milk
3 large egg yolks
60g caster sugar
20g plain flour
20g cornflour
150ml double cream
For decoration
60g smashed up oreos
Make the cupcakes and leave to cool
Make the custard, pour into a tray and cover with clingfilm straight away and leave to cool.
Heat the cream and pour over the white chocolate, stirring until melted. Add colour and peppermint and leave to cool in the fridge.
Beat the mint filling to whip it up a bit.
Cut little hollows in each cupcake and fill with a tsp of the mint filling.
Whip up the double cream.
Beat the cold custard until smooth and fold into the whipped cream.
Ice the cake with the mixture and top with crumbled cookies.
Join Beckie and me in our Epic 100 part bakealong. Next: I thin it’s cookies and cream cake.
Home Sweet Home Bakealong 63: Marshmallows
This is my second attempt at marshmallows. After number 47’s failed attempt at Coconut marshmallows it was time to try again. I invested in a sugar thermometer and lots of vege gel (couldn’t find the normal gelatine crystals) and set to work.
I even made a jelly with the same quantities of liquid to gelatine to check that it was going to set correctly. The jelly set. The marshmallow didn’t So, yet again I’m left with a jar of great tasting but very slumpy marshmallow fluff.
And then I forgot to transfer the photos before they got deleted so you’ll have to take my word for it.
Actually… I could just tell you that I made brilliant marshmallows and they worked perfectly. Yes, that’s what happened.
Join Beckie and me in our Epic 100 part bakealong. Next: Grasshoppercupcakes.
Home Sweet Home Bakealong 62: Shoofly Pie
Below is what Wikipedia has to say about Shoo-Fly-Pie. It sounds to me like the “two versions” are a cunning plan by people who’ve baked it with varying results to justify themselves. Which I’m more than happy to get onboard with. Mine’s erring on the wet-bottom side. It’s very easy to make and like Beckie I found that there was plenty of pastry and filling for a 10inch pie dish. It looks good, it’s very sweet but not overly heavy and you can do it in stages if you want to so it’s quite a good one to fit around a busy weekend. The pie itself is a mystery – how does that filling work with only one egg and some bicarb? Who knows, but it does.
Shoofly pie (or shoo-fly pie) is a molasses pie considered traditional among the Pennsylvania Dutch.
The pie may get its name because the sweet molasses odor attracts flies that must be “shooed” away.[3][4]
The shoofly pie’s origins may come from the treacle tart with the primary difference being the use of molasses rather than golden syrup.[5] A Montgomery pie is similar to a shoofly pie, except lemon juice is usually added to the bottom layer and buttermilk to the topping. A chess pie is also similar, but it is unlayered.
Shoofly pie also comes in two different versions – wet bottom and dry bottom. The dry bottom version is baked until fully set and results in a more cake-like consistency throughout. The wet bottom version is set like cake at the top where it has mixed in with the crumbs, but the very bottom is a stickier, gooier custard-like consistency.
Shoofly Pie
from Home Sweet Home by the Hummingbird Bakery
Serves 8-10
For the crust:
110g butter
225g plain flour
80g caster sugar
1 large egg
For the crumbs:
150g plain flour
110g soft dark brown sugar
30g butter
salt
For the filling:
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
190ml boiling water
110g treacle
110g golden syrup
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
10inch pie dish
Make the pastry and leave to cool in the fridge. Roll out and fill flan dish, chill again. Bake blind at 170c
Rub together the crumb mixture.
Put all the filling mix in on bowl, whisk and then str in 2/3rds of the crumb mix. Pour into the pastry case and top with the rest of the crumbs. Bake at 140c for about 40mins or until set. Leave to cool completely before serving.
Join Beckie and me in our Epic 100 part bakealong. Next: Marshmallows. Wish me luck.
