Bright and sunny Lemon Curd Raspberry Pielets

A quick pictorial post on these very delicious and easy (and not too time consuming, all things considered) pielets. From the bottom up we have: sweet pastry, lemon curd, lemon curd flavoured whipped cream and fresh raspberries. I haven't had time to try them on anyone else but my bet is they'd wow a crowd. And I got to use my new teeny tiny brioche shapes which I found, where else but in the local Asian grocery. Happy days.

I ran out of time to take them out of the moulds. Never mind. Next week we're making Fudgy Chocolate Sandwich Cookies.

A Vision in Lemony Yellow

This cake is like a shopping list of dairy products: Sour Cream Cream Cheese Butter Cake. Actually it's just Cream Cheese Butter Cake but it does have a lot of sour cream in it. I predict 100% Alpha Baker satisfaction with this cake because it's dead easy, incredibly quick and absolutely delicious. The only change I'd recommend is to double the recipe. This recipe goes straight to the pool room*.

*check out the film The Castle if you're not familiar with this expression.

Although the icing is called buttercream, forget nightmares of never-ending instructions or *shudder* pouring hot syrup into whizzing egg whites. This is just a simple lemon curd with butter beaten into it. With an immersion blender!  Barely any washing up...except for the two bowls, saucepan and sieve (yes I even sieve things these days). The only difficulty in the whole process is standing over the lemon curd patiently stirring while it thickens on the stove (do NOT walk away but if you do, a bit of wild whisking can resurrect a curd on the brink). 

Oh, and it's absolutely delicious.

I used ordinary unbleached (Australian*) plain flour rather than cake flour (which Rose notes is critical to this recipe). I mentioned early on in the Alpha Bakers that I wasn't that keen on the texture and taste you get from cake flour. This could be because it reminds me of lower quality commercially baked goods (which is the only place you really find cake flour here and they always taste of preservative), or perhaps because cake flour isn't commonly used here by domestic cooks and I'm used to more 'robust' baking. Whatever it is, in this case my cake certainly does look robust, although it had a very soft texture. I'm not sure if it was the flour or actually just the baker :) but it would be interesting to try it again with cake flour. And maybe I will. Particularly since I have had (oops) some lemon curd icing left over.

*which, as bakers around the world will know, differs from flour in the UK and USA (and elsewhere) in many ways, including the protein levels.

Next week we're making Lemon Curd and Raspberry Pielets. I just looked at the recipe and it requires 18 egg yolks!! No wonder spellcheck keeps changing pielets to piglets.

Lemon Icebox Cake

The trick to making this recipe is not to read ahead. Or, if you accidentally glance across, to immediately forget what you saw and concentrate on the particular task at hand. In fact it's a lot like renovating; a topic which is particularly relevant to my life at the moment. Renos, as we like to call them in this part of the world (you need to say the word with a bit of a twang and elongate the 'o' as in 'owe'z'), in my experience, can only be coped with by compartmentalising. If you thought about it all at once then you'd never start.

Of course, if you're an Alpha Baker and/or baking the cake because you promised it for a fundraising event, then you really do have to start. And so I did, with a bit of adjustment (I just couldn't face the sugar syrup part of the Italian meringue).

My version of the Lemon Icebox Cake in the photo below doesn't look too bad if you overlook the twee decorations (my five year old self popping out again for a bit of decorating). And it was delicious, and surprisingly light and refreshing, particularly given the enormous number of eggs and oodles of cream. Unfortunately the angel food cake part of it failed badly, although I did manage to resurrect enough to construct a finished product. Luckily the lemon curd cream held it all together.

*That crack in the top really annoys me. If I'd had any icing sugar on me at the time I would have dusted over it.

Cue elevator music...lulling the cook and her readers into a false sense of calm.

There are quite a few steps to making the lemon curd meringue cream and one of them involves making Italian meringue by drizzling hot sugar syrup into beaten egg whites. Somehow that seemed too much, so after a bit of research I decided just to make a plain meringue mixture by adding sugar to the beaten eggs.

The first step, however, was to make the lemon curd. It was a very easy method to make curd. All it needed was a little patience while stirring the mixture to thicken. I love, love, love the colour the curd comes out and this time I managed to catch it properly with the camera.

The next day, before I made the angel food cake, I folded whipped cream into the curd. The mixture was absolutely delicious. You could just serve it with spoons.

Then, the ill-fated angel food cake. There was nothing particularly difficult in the making of it. It has an extraordinary amount of egg whites in it. The recipe specifies 16! Yes, that's right, I said 16! I used the weight given in the recipe and it only turned out to be 13 egg whites. I'm wondering if that contributed to my problems with this cake?

The recipe has us add two teaspoons of cream of tartar to the beaten egg whites which I was doubtful about but put in anyway.  The taste of the eggs was pretty awful with that much cream of tartar until I added the lemon juice and vanilla. I think it's meant to make the cake white, which to my eyes looks strange anyway, so I won't be adding that much again.

You can see the cake was very cracked when it came out of the oven. The skewer came out clean so I thought it was done.

O!, *&%@!?#$#!*"!

The last sentence is written in a language known only to cooks. It is impossible to translate it directly to English. But you get the gist.

For those not familiar with making angel food cake, it needs be suspended upside down in the baking tin to cool. The tin has a hole in the middle which allows you to balance it on a bottle with a thin neck. It's a bit nerve-wracking turning a hot cake upside-down but up until now I haven't had one fall out. 

You may be mystified by the bottles under the cake but they were stabilising the bottle I used to elevate the cake tin. Stability of the bottle turned out to be the least of my problems. Stupid cake.

The recipe requires two slices of the cake to be cut crosswise. I managed to cut two thin circles off the cake by some miracle (it collapsed even more than the photo above shows). I'll spare you the photo of the rest of the cake. Lucky the recipe called for it to be broken into little pieces which wasn't a long way from where it was already.

Lucky there was miracle glue in the form of lemon curd cream. Just before putting it all together I folded egg whites* beaten with sugar to make a plain meringue, into the lemon curd cream mixture. I'm not that fond of a jellied texture in cakes and desserts but I could see that I would need something to hold this together, particularly in the hot weather here. So I added a leaf of gelatin (I prefer leaf gelatin because I think it gives a softer hold) and then I panicked and added another one. The texture of the final dessert wasn't at all jelly-like so one thing worked out well, at least.

*Uhuh, more egg whites.

This coming week we're making Pecan Praline Scheherazades.

Six steps to a Lemon Almond Cheesecake

I should say up front that the Lemon Almond Cheesecake is completely delicious and well worth the effort. But oh what an effort! It's not something to make when you're feeling tired (which I was). I had to compartmentalise this recipe to avoid being overwhelmed by the amount of work involved.

Step One: baking tin Tetris

If your oven is small like mine then you need to work out the biggest baking tin you can use to take the voluminous cheesecake batter, that will also fit into a slightly larger tin which is used as a water bath, that will all fit into your small oven. You also need to find a tin which is very slightly bigger than the cheesecake tin in which to bake the cake bottom. 

There was quite a lot of grumpy banging around in the cake tin drawer before I found the winning combination. Next cheesecake I'm buying some more tins.

Step Two: the cake bit

The light almond cake which is used as the base of the cheesecake is not too difficult but it requires toasting some almonds and then grinding them finely. It's the little steps that drive you crazy. 

I had a slight panic just before adding the eggs. I could find no weight in my ebook for the egg whites. Just when I've been trained into weighing eggs the rug (shell?) is pulled out from under my feet. Luckily Alpha Bakers Hanaa and Patricia came to my rescue with the right weight.

The good thing about this cake is that it makes two layers. Good housekeepers can use this opportunity to freeze one layer for later. I ate mine. It was delicious. And very light.

Not the best looking cake you've ever seen, but a bit of trimming got rid of the 'browner' bits. 

My gorgeous colleague asked me genuinely what the brown stripe was between the cheesecake and the cake. I had to fess up that it was a darker than desirable cake top rather than, say, a deliberate chocolate layer. 

Step three: more sour cream than you've ever seen in your life

The cheesecake batter-making part of this recipe is a bit of a blur. And my camera ran out of battery so I have nothing to remind me. I remember zesting a lot of lemons and weighing out my own body weight in cream cheese and sour cream. I also had to google 'substitutes for turbinado sugar' (again). I used golden caster sugar.

This was a truly delicious batter and there was a lot of it. I didn't add the suggested almond essence (I'm a bit scared of its potency) or lemon oil (I don't have any and the potency thing also). 

Step four: water bathing

Is this a new form of torture? It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have oven/baking tin issues. But all the same I still manage to somehow flick water on the cheesecake. Every time.

And all the foil in the world can't seem to keep out the water. The cheesecake survived despite this, although my state of mind was a little fragile by the time I took it out of the oven. And that was a little too soon perhaps, but by the time I realised there was no way I was putting the bath back together.

Oh good God, there's a step five??!!

Lemon curd glaze. I've made a a lot of this recently. I have the zombie stance standing over the pan stirring, down pat. I was so comatose by the time it thickened up, I even found myself straining it, just like the recipe says. 

And possibly it was worth it because it looked pretty smooth once I put it on the cheesecake.

Step six: almost too tired to eat

Not really. I'm never that tired.

Next week the Alpha Bakers are making Irish Cream Scones with Raspberry Butterscotch Lace Topping. I just looked at the recipe. Multiple steps!! Scones! How does Rose do it?!

Renee Fleming Golden Chiffon Cake

This week is a rest week for the Alpha Bakers (because we've done A LOT of baking). I chose to make it a catch-up week because I don't like to miss out on trying cakes (I missed baking this cake when it was scheduled at the end of last year) and plus it looked pretty delicious. It's the Renee Fleming Golden Chiffon, which is a lemon chiffon cake served with lemon curd cream. It's also meant to be sprinkled with some lemony dust but I miscalculated and ran out of lemons to zest, so no fairy dust for me.

This cake was incredibly soft and light and, served with the lemon curd cream, was absolutely delicious. I'll be making this again very soon. Rose dedicated this cake to her favourite soprano, Renee Fleming. I have to admit I wasn't familiar with her before this cake, but was able to appreciate her beautiful voice courtesy of YouTube. I can see why Rose is a fan.

This cake is made in a very similar way to the other light cakes in The Baking Bible. A mix of flour, sugar, lemon zest, egg yolks, oil and water are whipped together until thickened, and then the beaten egg whites are folded in. It's meant to have lemon oil but I didn't have any so I put some lemon juice in instead. I thought the finished cake was lemony enough with the juice and the zest. 

I considered cutting down the sugar since I found the Pavarotti cake a bit sweet. Then I panicked and put it back in because I thought it might ruin the structure of the cake, and structure is all with chiffon cakes. I feared ending up with a collapsed mess. 

The recipe instructs us to use a high sided springform tin but I have this reasonably expensive angel cake tin which I'd like to get my money's worth out of, so I used that. It's also custom made for balancing upside down, which you need to do when cooling this cake. (the cake, that is, not the baker). When I took the photo I didn't realise the bunny was peeking at me from behind the tin.

The cake turned out looking very nice and it didn't fall out of the tin when I cooled it upside down, which is always a relief. I forgot to take any photos of the lemon curd cream process. It is a very stiff lemon curd which is beaten into whipped cream. This is a fantastic recipe just by itself. And, oh so delicious!

This was also a great recipe because I got to use my new angel cake cutter. This has to be one of the most unnecessary kitchen tools ever invented. I'm not sure who did invent this (did they have a lot of time on their hands?) and I've never seen it used or sold in Australia. But there's nothing wrong with a bit of inexpensive frivolity and I've had it on my wish list ever since I saw it on another Alpha Baker's post (sorry I can't remember who). I was lucky enough to get a gift voucher for Christmas and promptly ordered this and a rotary apple peeler (also pretty cheap) that Patricia from ButterYum recommended. The reasoning behind the cutter is that the cake is so delicate a knife would squash it when you cut a slice. The sharp tines of the cutter loosen the cake and then you can gently separate the slice. It makes a fluffy but slightly ragged cut.

Next week the Alpha Bakers are all back from our break and baking Lemon Almond Cheesecake.

Lemon and cranberry (sunburst) tart tart

The photo of the Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart in the Baking Bible is one of the prettiest in the book, in my opinion. The tart is primarily lemon with sunbursts of red from cranberry sauce. I've been waiting to make it since the Alpha Bakers started a year and a bit ago. Needless to say I wasn't confident that my cack-handed decoration skills would achieve the same level of beauty. 

Actually when I took my mini tarts out of the oven I looked at them and thought 'yes!'. Then I checked the photo in the book and thought 'ah...no'. I hadn't reproduced the cranberry fireworks of the original. But mine were still quite pretty so I wasn't too disappointed. The tart was also delicious and the unusual combination of lemon curd and cranberry sauce is inspired. I only wish I'd used more of the cranberry in the tart.

Rose's instructions for making pastry in the food processor invariably ask the baker to pulse the butter until it's the size of small peas. My impatient hand generally pulses straight past small pea stage to minuscule crumbs. This time I slowed down and gave peas a chance. Boy, was I peas'd to see those pea-sized lumps and now my mind is at peas.

Terrible puns aside, I was pleased to be using up the bag of mega-expensive frozen cranberries I have in my freezer from a previous baking project. Until I measured out 50g. Only about 550g to go.

I need to confess that I didn't make the lemon curd this week. Before Christmas I made lemon curd for some lemon jammies biscuits I made as gifts and I had a reasonable amount left over. This is my first week back at work and I was quite relieved to have one of the tart components already made, even though it might be a bit different to Rose's recipe. Because I only had a limited amount of curd I decided to make a couple of small tarts rather than one big one.

The pastry for this tart is a lovely almond-based sweet pastry and is very soft and buttery. Unfortunately this doesn't make it easy to roll out and you can see my first disastrous attempt to roll out and fill the tart tins. Hmmm... back to the fridge.

You are in a beautiful garden... There is no pastry...

Even after a night in the fridge the pastry melted really quickly in the heat of my kitchen. I worked a bit faster for the second one and it was slightly better looking. I made 3 tart shells from the pastry but I could only fill two with curd.

Straight from the oven and even my decorations on the edges of the pastry are looking quite pretty.

Next week we're making the perennial favourite, chocolate chip cookies.

Lemony jammie deliciousness

This week is all about lemony deliciousness with the Lemon Jammies biscuits from the Baking Bible. I missed these a few weeks ago when the Alpha Bakers tested them out but I was really keen to make them since I love lemony flavours. So it was lucky that a catch up week turned up while I still had all the lemons I bought but didn't get to use. 

And I wasn't disappointed. These biscuits are plain butter biscuits flavoured with lemon zest and stuck together with lemon curd. I can't stress how delicious these are - I loved them and so did my testers. I'll definitely be making these again. I wasn't even put off by the fiddlyness of cutting out and sticking together.

The recipe starts with two tablespoons of lemon zest - that took a whole lot of lemons.

There was a heavenly scent when I opened the food processor after whizzing the sugar and lemon zest together. The recipe is simple to make in the processor, you just add the butter to the sugar/zest mixture then pulse in the flour.

The dough straight out of the food processor is crumbly but is easily pressed together through the plastic wrap. This dough is up in the top ten for tasty raw doughs.

It really is good to divide the dough into smaller amounts and to roll it out slightly before you rest it in the fridge. That way the dough pieces are in the right shape for rolling later and you can control the temperature of the dough once you start rolling and cutting. Thanks Rose and my fellow Alpha Bakers for these tips.

I used a recipe for lemon curd from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion. Her recipes are very reliable and always delicious. The lemon curd was no exception. It looks orange in the photo although it was really a deep yellow - the egg yolks were very deep orange.

It's very satisfying to line the biscuits up neatly and it helps to check my rather cavalier shape cutting system. I was pretty happy that we're in the dry season now so the humidity is much lower. This makes the dough easier to deal with and the cook a lot happier, so biscuit making is much calmer all round. 

I used my Christmas biscuit cutter which has a removable middle cutter, so centring the round was not a problem. Happy days.

The advantage of making these after my fellow Alpha Bakers is that I can learn by their experiences. I decided to use a plain cut out for the middle which meant that there was minimal effort in lining up the biscuit shapes when sticking them together.

Some of them turned out slightly oval :) but it wasn't too noticeable and frankly lemon curd cures all ills, including slightly skew-whiff biscuit shapes.

Next week we're making Chocolate Oriolos.  mmmmmm chocolate...