Pandan Entremet Cake

It's been a while exams, work. You know the drill. Since I'm all done until October I've got so much more time for crafts, DIY, gardening and obviously baking. I haven't posted any bakes in ages because quite simply the more I bake the bigger I get. And if you follow my Instagram (@sushiturtleslife) you'll know I'm doing the Paleo. So baking is a little more difficult.

But this cake I made for my uncle who always jokes at my blog. It's all in good fun, but he's right food can look great but it's all about how it tastes. So this one was to shut him up basically. Hahaha, just joking Uncle T. I think it went down well, they asked for a second slice. So I'm going to be making this again for a family lunch gathering. Very exciting. I love entremet cakes and have been obsessively googling them since I discovered, but I never saw one made with Pandan cake. Which my family love. I wanted to make a Pandan with a twist. This may frighten you, it's pretty damn fattening. I'd advise you make this for several people, avoids temptation of eating it all yourself!!

J's Chocolate Mousse Entremet

Firstly I appologise for the photos, not the best but you can see the cake so it'll do this time! I baked this for my boyfriends birthday. It had to be something show stopping and like none of my other cakes. But the recipe I followed was a French youtube video for a one portion dish... So I had to make it up along the way. It's almost like a cheesecake but with mousse. So the outter edges of the cake is an eggy sponge with the centre being all chocolate mousse. With a layer of strawberries and another praline. This takes a lot of time, due to the chilling steps.

Recipe:

Cake:

2 eggs separated. Whisk the whites to form peaks. Mix the yolks with 100g flour, 100g sugar. 

Fold in egg whites. Spread thinly and evenly on a baking tray. Bake at 180 celcius for 7-10 minutes.

Using a cake tin (preferably with a removable base) Cut a long strip with height of tin and a base.

Praline:

60g Almond flakes. 100g Sugar. Melt the sugar without water in a saucepan on medium heat. As the edges being to brown turn the heat low and allow all the sugar to melt completely and gain a dark brown colouring. At no point should you stir the sugar, before it has become liquid. Fold in almond flakes and spread onto a well greased baking tray. Or using 2 silicon sheets, use a rolling pin to flatten. Leave to set.

Strawberries:

Cut 6 large strawberries into small even chunks. Add to 20g of caster sugar and simmer in a sauce pan until the excess juice from strawberries has become thick and concentrated.

Mousse:

Using 300ml of whipping or thick cream (UHT will not whip). Beat the cream until thick and add to 200g of melted chocolate. Stir in gently.

Assembly:

Line your cake tin with the sponge. Making sure there are no gaps by gently squeezing the edges together. Using the sauce from the strawberries, brush on the juice evenly to the cake. Next spoon in 1/3 of the mousse mixture. Layer with strawberries (It is important that minimal liquid is added or it will melt the mousse) Leave to set for 20 minutes. Layer with 1/3 more mousse and sprinkle over chipped up almond praline brittle. Leave to set for further 20 minutes. Layer with the remaining mouse and leave to set for 2 hours. 

Once chilled and hard, using a hot pallet knife slide over the cake, using the tin as a guide, to gain a flat surface. Refrigerate for further 30 minutes before removing from tin. Dust with dutch press unsweetened cocoa powder using a fine sieve. Decorate with balls of chocolate ganache, hazelnuts, large shards of almond brittle.

Until Next Time xo

Palmiers for Breakfast

I love palmiers, I had my first in gorgeous Tuscan Italy under the sun. Visiting the leaning tower, spending the evening listening to street musicians at Ponte Veccio and chowing down some beautiful fresh seafood pallets and Florentine steak. Foodies paradise! Palmiers are a great way to cook your own breakfast, fresh and fast when we're rushed in the early morning. Pack these in a small bag and take them for snacking during the day too.

Drunken Chocolate Soufflé

A week later, not much has changed with me! But recently got a new job with the local Go Karting centre, we had a staff championship Grand Prix yesterday. An hour down the road to Bristol for our regional heats and it's pretty safe to say I came dead last. Yeah, I thought it was going to be a friendly few laps around the track. Boy was I wrong, I got up to the changing rooms and half the lads strolled up with a duffel bag filled with their own jumpsuits and helmets. Oh crap. This is going to be pretty serious. I looked at another recently hired guy and said, it's just me and you. Head to head. It's going to be a free for all. It was, I gave it my all and didn't spin out once! But as an overall centre we won!! So hey, round 2 next week I best get some practise in no?

Anyway to the soufflé, I was attempting to make a gorgeous chocolate and mango tarte with a luxurious chocolate and caramel ganache. I failed terribly at the first hurdle of home made custard mixing in a fresh mango puree. If anyone has a good recipe or tips for this please help me out! I was left with a lumpy brown mess... so that went in the bin. Waste?! I wanted a new challenge and gave up on the mango. This is incredibly easy and I was so shocked that I actually got a good rise from it! Score, smile returned to my face at last. I hate defeat. This recipe only takes 4 ingredients and if your an avid Baileys drinker you've just saved yourself a trip to the shops.

Ingredients:

3 Egg whites

35g Dutch press cocoa powder (unsweetened)

30g Caster sugar

40ml Baileys (or liqueur of choice)

Prep: Using 1 tbsp of cocoa powder and 1 tbsp of sugar. Grease the ramekins and dust with cocoa sugar mixture. To evenly coat. Preheat oven to 190 degrees.

Recipe:

1. Mix liqueur and cocoa powder in a small bowl.

2. In a separate bowl whisk egg whites adding sugar in parts to form stiff peaks. This is roughly 6-8 minutes using an electing hand mixer.

3. Once stiff (You can try the over the head trick if your confident enough!) Spoon half the mix into the choc mix and fold in using a figure of 8 motion.

4. Once mixed in well add the remaining egg mix and repeat.

5. Spoon into ramekins and bake for 13 minutes.

Top Tips: 

 - Be sure to completely coat the ramekins with butter and cocoa sugar mix! This will help the rise.

 - Completely mix in the eggs. No streaks or marbling. This will again effect the rise and flavour, leaving patches of tasteless egg white.

 - Do not knock or disturb the air you've built up or you'll get a flat blob.

This is best served within the first 2 minutes after removing from the oven. This leaves such little time for any other decoration. So if you have something in mind make sure you have it ready! I just dusted with icing sugar because I didn't think they would actually work, hence the lack of photos! They needed a little whip and my usual photo shoots, but there was just no time haha! They look a little grubby on the edges but that never effects the taste eh ;)

Until Next Time xo

Dont forget my giveaway is closing soon, win 4 pieces of diva jewellery! 

Click here to enter.

Blueberries & Cream Profiteroles

Such a gorgeous day in Cardiff today. I hope the weather is treating you well wherever you are! The reruns of the Great British Bake Off have just started up again and they were challenged to make the infamous profiterole. I hate them, but I've only ever had the cheap and cheerful ones. So I knew it was time to make some myself, to my taste with a gorgeous fresh blueberry cream filling. Needless to say, these were the only 3 left after 30. (I did not eat them all to myself.. or maybe I did! Hrmm)

The clocks went back this weekend for the start of the 'British Summer' I'll believe it when I see it. It's still freezing today, but the sun is out so we'll just take what we can get before we have to jet off. The summer always brings to mind, fresh fruit with a healthy dollup of cream and some cocktails in the sun. The latter will have to wait for the temp to increase tho!

Ingredients:

150ml cold water

50g butter cubed

60g strong plain flour

2 eggs

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup blueberries

250ml whipping cream

1. In a saucepan heat the water and butter together until a light simmer.

2. Before the water boils, we don't want to loose any by evaporation, take off the heat and add flour.

3. Beat rapidly until the mixture pulls away from the sides and forms a ball.

4. Add an egg beat well before adding another, the mixture will look like its splitting at this point, but with more mixing shall come back together.

5. Beat until you have a glossy mixture, spoon (or pipe) onto a greased baking tray and cook for 10 mins at 200 degrees.

6. Now turn the heat up to 220 degrees for a further 15 minutes.

( Don't be afraid of the rolls slightly browning, if they don't they will become soggy inside!)

7. Prick each with a tooth pick and transfer to a cooling rack to dry out.

8. Blend blueberries to make a puree.
9. Add cream and beat until thick.
10. Use a tablespoon or pipping bag to fill.
11. Garnish with fresh fruit, mint and a dust of icing sugar.

Until Next Time xo

Don't forget to enter my giveaway bellow!! And tweet me any of your pictures following my recipes or beauty tips @ericahenderson :) 

Red Velvet Cake

When I first tried red velvet I fell in love, it was so moist and just had a different taste that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Turns out it was buttermilk, which on its own taste like the midpoint of milk and  yoghurt. Which really isn't very nice, but in the cake itself it works a treat. When making this cake I completely forgot that I put a very light and fluffy Swiss Meringue dirty ice on. So when I stuck my royal icing on top... well it just did not work. It ripped and started to dent and pimple. Ooops.

Ciabatta Bread

After eating about 30 different cupcakes, my Auntie came out with 'You should make bread, everyone makes cupcakes. Make bread, I love bread!' So I thought, fuck it! I love bread too! Well maybe not that much, but a cold meat stuff sandwich is a pretty good damn lunch. Plus having so many people tell me about all the preservatives and chemicals they put in food these days, I'm trying to make more things myself and keep it simple. Fresh and REAL ingredients. This didn't quite pan out this time because I wanted to keep student budgets in mind and ease, so I picked up a mix from Lidl. But without this it would be roughly the same price, just flour and some dry active yeast!

Mother's Day Cupcakes

This post is slightly late in the making but you've still got time!! Mothers day is on Sunday if you have forgotten, but it's hard to with all these adverts everywhere! If you were thinking of getting your mum something from of the shelf... something she could probably predict, or useless cheap pamper box sets don't bother! This is much cheaper, more heart felt and delicious.. of course!

Maison Blanc

Every time I walk past this shop window I fall in love. Little macaroons (which everyone keeps raving about), very delicate pastries and gorgeous looking cakes. The price is pretty up there and after a few days of indulging in the Cake Boss TV series, I really really wanted me some delicious bakes. But I was disappointed. When I get an impulse I'm sure my friends and family could tell you that theres no stopping me, even money is no boundary. I just go a bit crazy. And so I did. I spent £22 on these desserts, which with my student budget is probably why I was so disappointed. More to the point, I got there 1 minute before they closed and luckily they let me in, so I didn't really have many options to choose from at 6pm on a Friday night. But hey, I was there and had some major cravings. So I picked the prettiest looking and of course the infamous macaroons. (I did try to bake these before as so many bloggers have) Let me tell you. They may look great in pictures, but the truth is in the bite. They need to be crunchy on the outside and a viccy sponge texture in the middle. These were as such, but wow was it an almond overload. Very bitter and I didn't realise these were stuffed with some strange fillings. To say the least I don't like macaroons. As cute as you are little fellas, I wont be ordering any more. Although I must say they are beautifully packaged.

Pina Colada Procrastination Cupcakes

Happy New Year to all my readers! I've been away revising for exams... or not. But I'm back with the first post of 2013! I'm going to save you the cliche 'here are my resolutions'. Along with many of you, I've spent the majority of my days procrastinating. I mean to an extreme! But here's one that turned out worth while... Pina Colada Cupcakes.

Mango... because I forgot to keep some pineapple! 

Recipe:

300g flour

230g soft butter

220g sugar

4 eggs

200ml coconut milk

40ml dark rum

140g pineapple, into chunks

Icing:

230g soft butter

90ml coconut milk

1tsp vanilla extract

580g icing sugar

20ml dark rum

100g desiccated coconut

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.

1. Cream butter and sugar

2. Add eggs and mix well after each addition

3. Mix in flour and coconut milk in thirds alternating

4. Fill a third of each cupcake case, top with pineapple chunks

5. Cover pineapple with more cake batter

6. Cook for 20 minutes or until stick comes out clean

7. Mix all icing ingredients together in a clean bowl

8. On a low heat, gently toast half the sprinkling coconut 

9. Wait for cakes to cool before piping

10. Pipe and sprinkle half non toasting and half toasting coconut

If anyone was wondering what tip I used for this, Its just a plain open tip. I will get a photo soon! I apologise in advance for all those who have started their New Years 'diet'. Give up and join us on the dark side!

Until Next Time xo

Banoffee Coma

Experimenting with one of my favourite desserts, banoffee pie. It seems the most successful cupcake recipes derive some classics stuffed into miniature cupcake form. So I thought, why not? It went down amazingly well apart from the toffee stuffing. I attempted the old condensed milk heated toffee, but it soon crystallised and the texture was a horrible sandy feeling. Bar this small problem they were delicious!

I had to show you a picture of the pipping since this was my first time using one and I've been addicted to buying all the nozzles ever since. For this particular frosting I used a nozzle similar to the Wilton 1M. I thought I'd got away with saving £4 by buying a different brand, but I later learnt that the Wilton's are more expensive as they're stronger. But I'll leave that decision up to you. 

Recipe:

• 225g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 110g butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 bananas (mashed up)
• 55ml milk, or buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 115g caster sugar

Cream the butter sugar and eggs. Then add mashed bananas, milk, sugar, salt, baking and bicarbonate. Slowly fold the flour before mixing well. Bake at 170 degrees for 15 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. I used a simple butter cream recipe that you can find anywhere online.

You may want to use actual cupcake cups rather than like me muffin cups as they were so big and sweet it was overkill!

Until Next Time xo