Ever since I made my wicked banana cake for a morning tea event held last month at work, I’m beginning to gain a reputation for being a good baker/cook and now I am always harassed to make something. “When will you be bringing in some sweets, Linda? … It’s my birthday tomorrow, please bake me a cake! … I hear you’re a whiz in the kitchen; make something and I’ll be the judge of that *wink wink*”. It’s quite flattering, but I keep finding myself in situations where I can’t refuse them and as a result, I have to make something. I never break a promise, so, this weekend, I made my ever famous hummingbird cake and a tiramisu roulade-turned-layer cake.

I thought making a roulade would be easy. It’s basically a rolled up sponge cake with cream in the middle. How hard could that be? Well, after trying to make one today, I’ve realised that it’s quite difficult!

I attempted this recipe twice and failed both times. The sponge cakes came out beautifully cooked each time, but when it came time to roll it, it would create three distinct cracks, then subsequently break. I contemplated giving it a third go, but I didn’t have enough eggs and was just over it. As W.C Fields once said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.” Which is exactly what I did. I tried again, and again, but then gave up… As I was about to mush it all together and eat it like an Eton mess, I suddenly had the brilliant idea of creating a layer cake instead. I trimmed the edges, brushed each sponge piece with the syrup and lathered on the coffee mascarpone cream filling. It turned out well, don’t you think?

So for my dear work colleagues, you ask for cake, I give you cake. I truly hope you don’t like it. That way, you’ll never ask me again to bake for you ;)

Tiramisu Layer Cake

Although I made a layer cake, if you’re blessed to have magic roulade rolling skills, then by all means assemble the cake as a roulade. Just don’t tell me about, I’ll get upset :)

Adapted from a recipe in ‘Cakes Biscuits Slices’ by the Australian Women’s Weekly.

Syrup

¼ cup caster sugar

¼ cup water

2 tablespoons coffee liqueur

2 teaspoons instant coffee granules

Cake

3 eggs

½ cup caster sugar

2 teaspoons instant coffee granules

1 tablespoon boiling water

½ cup plain flour

cocoa powder, to dust

Filling

250g marscapone cheese

125ml cream

2 tablespoons icing sugar

2.5 tablespoons coffee liqueur

caster sugar, to sprinkle

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Line a Swiss roll pan (roughly 25×30 cm) with non-stick baking paper. Set aside.
2. In a small saucepan, combine the water, sugar and coffee liqueur and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes until the mixture thickens and becomes syrupy. Remove from heat and stir in the instant coffee granules. Allow to cool and set aside.
3. Dissolve the coffee granules in the boiling water. Beat together the eggs and sugar in another bowl until pale and thick. Fold in the flour and dissolved coffee. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle with the flaked almonds. Bake for 15 minutes or until browned and springy to the touch. Allow to cool.
4. For the filling, whip the marscapone and cream until soft peaks form. Stir in the icing sugar and liqueur. To assemble, cut the sponge into three equal strips. Brush half of the syrup onto one strip of cake. Spread half of the filling onto this cake strip. Repeat this step with another strip of cake. Place the last strip of cake onto the top and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving.
5. When it is time to serve, liberally dust the top of the cake with a good layer of cocoa powder.

Serves 6.

I was going to experiment with chai-flavoured cupcakes this weekend, hence the photo, but ‘unfortunately’ I don’t have time to because I’m too busy celebrating my birthday! I know, what a shame :) I turned the big 22 yesterday and I have the whole weekend filled with food, fun and friends. Yay!

So in this lazy post, I’ll share with you a few of my sweet favourites of the week:

• Melissa at The Traveler’s Lunchbox has just returned from a trip to Abruzzo, Italy and her recipe for Gelato di Fragola e Balsamico (Strawberry and Balsamic Vinegar Gelato to you and I) is a winner. It’s made with mascarpone cheese, so it will definitely be luscious and creamy. Her photos on the blog are always gorgeous and her foodie/travel stories are wonderful to read. I love her blog!

• Next is the ultra talented Tartelette. Her unique creations, photos, stories and recipes are always fabulous and her macarons are to die for. As soon as I saw her drool-worthy Snickers Macarons, I knew they were a must on my ‘To Bake’ list. I can’t wait!

• Lastly, we have the lovely Bea at La Tartine Gourmande. Every foodie/blog reader knows about her and she is a food stylist/photographer extraordinaire. Her photos are simply beautiful and I only wish I had some of her creativity and talent. Her Apple Juice Sabayon looked absolutely amazing and I am looking forward to summer when I can make this with the season’s best berries.

Have a great weekend everyone and I’ll be back in the kitchen again next week :)

Crème caramel to the French, flan to the those in the Spanish speaking countries. Whatever you want to call it, until tonight, I had never tasted this old-school dessert before. My only experience with them has been salivating over them in foodie magazines, recipe books or on television cooking shows. You don’t often see them being offered in restaurants these days either, so the poor crème caramel and I have never had the pleasure to meet.

To me, it always looked like one of those desserts that were too tricky and fiddly to make. I’ve always wondered how they were baked for so long without turning hard and chewy. I was also curious as to how the caramel didn’t stick to the moulds and how they managed to keep their shape after you popped them out.

After flicking through Neil Perry’s ‘The Food I Love’, I found a recipe for this dessert and with my first attempt this afternoon, I managed to make six perfectly wobbly crème caramels in time to enjoy after dinner. To my surprise, both the caramel and custard were dead easy to make. I was also extremely nervous when it came to removing them from their moulds, but after a mini hot water bath, they easily inverted onto the serving plates to swim happily in a pool of sticky caramel syrup.

So how would I describe my first taste of the crème caramel? Well, it was wonderful. The tiny hint of bitterness in the sweet caramel matched wonderfully with the subtle flavour of the baked vanilla custard. And the texture of it all is something else altogether. It’s definitely a dessert to make again!

Crème Caramel

Recipe by Neil Perry in ‘The Food I Love’.

1 litre (4 cups) full-cream milk

115g (½ cup) caster sugar

1 vanilla bean, split with seeds scraped out

6 egg yolks

6 eggs

Caramel

225g (1 cup) caster sugar

125ml (½ cup) water

1. Combine the milk, sugar and vanilla bean and seeds in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to stand for 45 minutes.
2. For the caramel, bring the sugar and water to a gentle simmer, stirring briefly to dissolve the sugar. Do not stir once it’s simmering. Watch the sugar and water carefully, and simmer only until it starts turning a deep caramel colour. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and carefully pour equal amounts of the caramel into six 250ml capacity moulds. Hold the moulds at the top of the rim and swirl to coat the moulds halfway up their sides with the caramel. Set aside.
3. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Lightly mix the eggs and yolks in a bowl. Strain the cooled milk mixture into the egg mixture, slowly whisking. Strain again and pour into the prepared moulds. Lay a tea-towel on the bottom of a roasting tin. Place the moulds inside the tin and fill the tin with hot water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the moulds. Cover the tin with foil and place in the centre of the oven to cook for 30-45 minutes, or until set (the time will vary according to the oven). Allow to cool, then store in the refrigerator. for at least 4 hours or overnight.
4. To serve, pour some boiling water in a bowl and place a mould in the water for about 20 seconds. Carefully run a knife around the inside of the mould and jiggle the mould to loosen the custard. Place the serving plate on top and quickly upturn the crème caramel and slowly remove the mould, allowing the caramel to gently spill down the edges of the dessert.

Makes 6.

One of my all-time favourite baking books is Dorie Greenspan’s ‘Baking From My Home To Yours’. There is a great variety of recipes and the wonderfully written prose is easy and enjoyable to read. With each recipe, you also feel as if she’s in the kitchen with you, guiding you every step of the way.

With every recipe I have tried for this blog, from the Twice-Baked Almond Brioche, Peanut Butter Cookies and Dulce de Leche Duos to the pastry cream recipe for my yummy Mango Tart, each has turned out brilliantly and with great success.

My lucky streak ended yesterday when I tried to make her Brown Sugar Pecan Shortbread Cookies and they turned out terribly. I even made them twice! On the first attempt, I followed her instructions step-by-step and they spread into one huge cookie slab! It tasted nice, but I didn’t want to chip away pieces of it to serve to my family (‘Jagged shortbread slab piece, anyone?’). On the second try, I actually popped the biscuit dough into the freezer for 15 minutes before baking, much like you would for pastry, in an attempt to stop the squares from spreading out into a huge rectangle as it did on the first try. It was much better, but the shortbread still spread out quite a bit and did not look anything like the cute little perfect sand-coloured squares in the photo. I wasn’t going to try it a third time, as I had already used 500 grams (!) of butter and I was kind of over baking the same thing twice in one day really.

Since the shortbread came out a little ugly, I wasn’t too happy with how they photographed either. They weren’t as thick as they were supposed to be and turned out way too dark. But, like all Dorie recipes, they tasted absolutely awesome. They were like any shortbread should be: buttery, crisp, sweet but too sweet.

Although my shortbread didn’t turn out like Ms. Greenspan’s, I haven’t given up on her recipes yet. Hopefully I’ll find some time to bake another Dorie recipe this week. Maybe her World Peace Cookies or Caramel Pots de Creme. I can’t wait!

Brown Sugar Pecan Shortbread

If you decide to give these a go, hopefully yours don’t turn out crappy like mine :)

Adapted from a recipe by Dorie Greenspan in ‘Baking From My Home To Yours’.

1¼ cups plain flour

½ cup rice flour (or cornflour)

¼ teaspoon salt

pinch ground cloves

250g unsalted butter,room temperature

¾ cup light brown sugar

½ cup finely ground pecans

raw/demerara sugar, to sprinkle

1. Sift together the flour, rice flour, salt and cloves.
2. Beat the butter and sugr using a hand-held mixer or freestanding mixer on medium speed for around 3 minutes or until very smooth. Reduce the speed to low and add dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Add the pecans and give the mixer a couple of turns, just to mix the nuts through.
3. In between two large pieces of non-stick baking paper, roll the dough out to an approximately 24 x 28cm rectangle that’s 1.5cm thick. Place the dough in the fridge for at least 3 hours or up to 2 days.
4. Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper. Using a ruler and a sharp knife, cut the dough into 4cm squares. Transfer the squares to the prepared baking trays and prick each square twice with the tines of a fork. Sprinkle some raw sugar over each dough square. Place these two trays in the freezer for 15 minutes to chill. Preheat the oven to 175°C. Position the oven racks to divide the oven into thirds.
5. Bake the biscuits for 15 to 18 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point. Dorie’s shortbread were beautifully pale. Mine were dark and ugly.
6. Cool the shortbread on a wire rack.