Honey and almond tart

Honey and almonds are 2 of my favourite flavours, so both in the same recipe makes it a 'must bake'. The 2 flavours make me think of a trip we had to Morocco and Moorish baking, which I love.

The base is shortcrust pastry and I use double Delia's recipe from her 'Complete Cookery Course' so I use  220g plain flour, 50g each of soft butter and lard, a pinch of salt and enough water to bind together. This makes 250g pastry.

You also need:

150g apricot puree [I used apricot preserve]
125g butter
50g caster sugar
75g honey
3 eggs + little beaten egg
50g ground almonds
100g sr flour

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Grease a 35x12cm loose base tart tin [I bought one from Lakeland].

Roll pastry out on floured surface and line the tart tin.

Spread a layer of apricot puree/preserve over the pastry - it's easier if you use the back of a spoon.
Cream the butter, sugar, honey and eggs together, then add the ground almonds and flour and mix gently.
Spoon into the pastry case and smooth the top.

Bake in centre of oven for about 30 mins, then lower temperature to 160C/gas 3 and cook for another 20 mins till golden.

My friend served it with cream to which she'd added a few drops of almond essence and a little bit of honey - heavenly!

Chocolate cake (Schokogugelhupf]

My lovely dil bought me a silicone kugelhopf mould and I've been looking for a good recipe to use it. This is the Hairy Biker's chocolate cake recipe from their 'Bakeation' programmes. I presume 'gugelhupf'' [Austrian] uses the same mould as a 'kugelhopf' [German]! Here's their recipe from the Beeb - it's also in their 'HB big book of Baking'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chocolate_cake_20610

I didn't put any ground almonds in the mould before putting the mixture in, and I didn't decorate the cake with almonds or sugar, but otherwise I followwed their recipe.The cake has a lovely firm but moist texture, and a good chocolate flavour, slightly nutty. The icing holds its shape well as you spoon it over the cake.

Strawberry millefeuille

The strawberries growing in a Growbag in the greenhouse are doing really well. I wanted to use them for something special and this is it - a millefeuille. This is going to be my entry for June's Tea Time Treats. It's a monthly challenge with a theme, hosted alternatively by Karen and Kate. June's hostess is Kate and the theme is Summer fruits. You'll find the rules here.

This is a easy recipe which looks great to serve to guests. The pastry is the difficult fiddly bit, and buying it makes it so much easier – buy butter pastry. Once the pastry's cooked, it's just a case of assembling your millefeuille.

500g puff pastry [your own or ready-made]
500ml whipping cream
4 tbspn vanilla sugar
500g strawberries [or other fruit of your choice] wiped not washed
Icing sugar to dust

Preheat oven 220C/gas7.

Roll the pastry out on a chilled board to 3mm thick, then use a sharp knife to cut into 3 equal rectangles 18x30cm. Leave to chill for at least an hour or overnight.
Chill a baking sheet under running cold water and shake off excess.
Put one of the pastry rectangles on the wet sheet and prick all over with a fork. Bake till well puffed up and golden.
Do the same with the other 2 rectangles.
Whisk the cream into soft peaks and add the sugar.
Smooth half the cream onto a pastry layer, add a layer of strawberries.
Cover with another pastry rectangle.
Put another layer of cream and add more strawberries.
Add the last rectangle of pastry on top and dust with icing sugar.

Mocha Viennese fingers

Since my son has been living with us, my cake and biscuit tins are permanently empty! What to make next? This month's added ingredient from We Should Cocoa's monthly challenge is coffee so I decided to make some Viennese fingers with a coffee cream filling. They will also be my contribution to the monthly Alpha Bakes challenge, but more of that later on. 
The June We Should Cocoa challenge is guest hosted by  The Kitchen Maid and the usual hosts of this monthly challenge are Choclette and Chele. These are the rules.

Makes 12

150g butter
75g icing sugar, sifted
150g plain flour, sifted
100g dark chocolate
3 tspn instant coffee
1 tspn boiling water

filling:

Preheat oven 190C/gas5
Grease two baking sheets and line with baking parchment.

Beat 100g of the butter with 25g of the icing sugar, then work in the flour. Put in a piping bag with a large star nozzle and pipe twelve 5cm long strips onto each baking sheet. I find it easier to stand the piping bag in a jug and turn the top over the sides of the jug, then fill with the mixture.
Bake for 10-15 minutes until a pale golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water or in the microwave. Dissolve the coffee in the boiling water. Beat together the remaining butter and icing sugar with the coffee. Sandwich the biscuits together in pairs with the coffee buttercream, then dip one end of each in melted chocolate. When hardened, dip the other ends in the chocolate. Keep for about a week in an airtight tin.

There are so many different recipes for these fingers, some using cornflour. They have a lovely melt in the mouth texture, and the coffee filling goes well with the chocolate. I know that I said in my last post that I don't like buttercream filling, but the others do, and it is easier to make!

I'm going to also use this post as my contribution to the Alpha Bakes monthly challenge. This is hosted alternately by Ros and Caroline and you can find the rules here. Ros is the June host and the randomly chosen letter is V, so my Viennese fingers fit in nicely.

Nik's Mocha Cake

My son is living back with us atm and he chose this as his birthday cake. He loves chocolate and coffee, so a combination of the two is his idea of heaven!
It's the first time I've mixed the cocoa into a paste and then added the rest of the ingredients, but it worked well; it's such and easy cake to make. The milk keeps it really moist.

 I'm not a fan of buttercream, as I find it too sweet, so the icing and filling I used was a coffee mousseline, originally from a Delia recipe. It's more work than buttercream, and can be tricky, but is a lovely smooth filling and it's not too sweet.

Cake:

50g cocoa

6 tbsp boiling water

3 eggs

175g sr flour

1 tspn baking powder

60ml milk
100g soft butter
275g caster sugar

Icing:

60g caster sugar
4 tbsp water
2 large (or 3 small) egg yolks
150g butter (room temperature)
2 - 3 tbsp Camp coffee [or coffee granules in boiling water if you prefer]

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Lightly grease and line 2 sandwich tins, 20cm and about 4 cm deep.

Put the cocoa powder into a big bowl and add the boiling water. Mix well to make a paste.

Add the rest of the ingredients and beat with an electric hand mixer till mixed together. Don't overbeat.

Put into the 2 tins and bake for 25-30 mins till well risen. cool on a wire rack.

Icing:

Put the water and sugar in your smallest saucepan and slowly bring to the boil, making sure all the sugar is dissolved completely before it boils

Simmer gently for 12 – 15 minutes (temp on a cooking thermometer should be 103 – 105C)
Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl, then pour the sugar syrup onto the eggs whisking all the time. It’s REALLY important here to pour directly onto the eggs, not onto the beater or the bowl sides as the sugar syrup will solidify and it won’t work.
Whisk the butter in about 25g at a time until you have a smooth fluffy cream and lastly whisk in the coffee essence.  Use to fill and cover the cake.

                        This is a lovely, moist cake and it has a good strong chocolate flavour. I also used 3 tbspn of Camp coffee in the icing so it has a strong coffee flavour too.

 I love this plate - it's one of a set of 6 I inherited from my Granny, and is not often used.