7. Viennese Fingers

 

For another break from the cake, I decided to skip a few chapters and bake some more biscuits instead. I've always loved Viennese biscuits, and these totally lived up to expectations. They were easy to make; again, there were relatively few ingredients, and quite straightforward processes involved. I'm wondering if using the electric whisk is really the right way to go with these biscuits, because although everything gets nicely beaten together, it's a bit of a pain when the mixture gets all clogged up around the beaters. Anyway, I learnt something new while making these; how to use a piping bag properly. Mum was on hand to assist in my novice attempt to get the quite dense mixture down to the nozzle; it was actually quite hard work piping the biscuits out! They looked a bit like funny little sandworms on the baking sheet when I'd piped them, but I managed to get the required 20 biscuits out, with a few hand-moulded blobs too, which I wasn't expecting. It seems a little goes a long way where these biscuits are concerned. I really need to trust Mary more...

The biscuits had 11 minutes in the oven, and slid off the tray with ease. I left them cooling for a while before melting the chocolate, and was worried they'd crumble, being a bit delicate round the edges. It was immensely satisfying dunking them in the melted chocolate, albeit a bit messy. They were then put in the fridge to finish setting, because we were too impatient to wait any longer for the chocolate to harden. They did stick to the rack a bit unfortunately.

Baker's verdict: a bit fiddly, but easy enough to make. Lovely light, buttery biscuits - very moreish.

Husband rating: 9/10 - no complaints; he's saving the 10 for something unbeatable.

Dad and Uncle rating: 10/10 -  they were very impressed.

6. Death By Chocolate Cake

If you were going to meet your end in a chocolatey fashion, I'm sure this cake would help. The cake itself simply has cocoa powder in it; it's the icing that might cause artery cloggage! Instead of butter, sunflower oil is used and there's some golden syrup in there too. With the addition of milk, a mixture of a very wet consistency is formed, and two fairly sticky sponges emerge.After cooling, the cakes need to be sliced in half; managed with relative ease.

Picture 1 shows the icing: the product of 450g of plain chocolate and 200g of butter. It's a huge amount, designed to sandwich each half sponge together and cover the top and sides. It tasted heavenly (we had to lick the pallet knife when I'd finished icing, of course), but you'd not want much of it in one sitting!My first attempt at icing a whole cake was a bit cack-handed to say the least, but I sort of found a technique and don't think I did too badly for a first attempt. I don't think I overheated the chocolate - it looked pretty shiny to me. The picture on the right shows the semi-finished product, and if I make this cake again I think I'd leave it at that. Just serve it with cream and some raspberries or boozy cherries maybe.

This is the cake post-decoration. I had to coarsely grate plain and white chocolate (which Joe ended up doing for me thanks to my jitters about grating my fingers). I'm now quite eager to learn a bit more about chocolate-craft when decorating cakes; I wasn't happy with the end result, which made it look a bit of a mess really.

When sliced, the cake looked lovely. The icing had set firm, which created a nice contrast in textures between a very light sponge and quite solid chocolate. I'm pleased to have produced a cake which looked a bit professional; a step beyond the basic sponge sandwich variety. It wasn't too sickly (certainly not sweet) but you'd need to eat to your means!
Baker's verdict: a challenge; some anxiety about whether the sponges were cooked enough. Tasted lovely. I'd make this again.
Husband rating: 9 - very tasty; very nice chocolate icing.

5. Fork Biscuits

I've decided to stray slightly from my order of baking by making these biscuits; I wanted to bake something but thought the two rather decadent chocolate cakes I've got to make warranted an occasion more special than a same-old, same-old Thursday! I'm so excited by this project that I threw a wobbly this week because I needed an extra baking sheet for these, and then it was too late in the evening to be eating biscuits, so I didn't bake anything. I think I had withdrawal symptoms, feeling bereft without my apron! 

So, these are the first biscuits in the biscuit chapter, simply called 'Fork Biscuits' (note the fork marks), apparently derived from an old Cordon Bleu recipe. They only contain three ingredients: butter, self-raising flour and caster sugar. I keep having crises of confidence about what constitutes 'softened butter' (as daft as that sounds; I did have a cheese straw disaster before Christmas because the butter was too soft), but I braced myself for a disaster and happily it didn't happen. The dough took a while to form; it began as lots of flaky crumbs but I was eventually able to work it into the required 'balls'. They took just over 15 minutes to bake, smelt lovely and buttery and, despite being a bit 'rustic' looking, acquired a nice golden colour.

Baker's verdict: easy to make, with a bit of faith; lovely taste and a texture much like shortbread.

Husband rating: 8.25 - really, really tasty but could've been more perfect in appearance. Tried and tested by colleagues who asked for second helpings.

P.S. Since starting my blog, I've had two comments about it being an inspiration to bake!

4. Fairy Cakes

These didn't really present much of a challenge; I've made loads of fairy cakes over the years. I felt a bit frustrated making these, partly for that reason, but also because I'm being so rigid about baking everything in the book, I had to leave these plain. It's only on my second foray into fairy cakes that the wonders of icing will be discovered! That said, it was nice to be able to turn these out so quickly and it's immensely satisfying to produce something lovely with minimal effort.

I decided to make the chocolate version, as they were intended for some of my A Level students and thought they'd be a bit more appealing. I used Stork instead of butter (still got some to use up) and Green & Black's cocoa (had to get some luxury in there somewhere). It's such a basic recipe, but I took Mary's advice and mixed it for several minutes. A lovely, light mixture was dolloped into the cases as a result. Because the tray was (weirdly) too small for the cases, the buns baked in a slightly wonky fashion, and I again had the 'are they ready?' dilemma. 15-20 minutes was needed, and I gave them 20 in the end, as they looked a bit too squishy at 15.

Baker's verdict: satisfying to make because they were so easy; taste and texture very good.

Husband rating: 8 - really good taste, lovely to eat, but small and a bit plain.

Students' opinion: nice, but needed some icing.

3. Traditional Parkin

This bake presents the same scenario as the fruit cake; no eating allowed for a week. This is probably just as well, given the amount of cake consumed in recent days! I'm also intending to feed this to one of my Y13 classes, just because it'll cut neatly into little squares and because I'll never manage to bake everything in the book, eat it and stay slim! We will, of course, be having a taste - purely for the purposes of reviewing the success of the bake.

So, parkin. I've made it before but I'm sure I didn't put porridge oats in it, as this recipe demands. I'm not convinced I'm going to like the possibly 'chanky' texture, but we'll see. Anyway, as illustrated above, there is a hefty amount of sugary, fatty stuff in here: 175g of treacle, sugar and about 150g of butter - all melted down into a lovely- smelling goo. There's also cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg in this, so it's going to be really spicy.

It was pretty easy to make; I found fiddling with the measuring spoons the most faffy part. The 'how will I know when it's done?' issue reared its head with the (to me) vague instructions to cook it for 'about an hour or until firm to the touch'. I actually cooked it for less because I've a tendency to over-bake. Despite appearances to the contrary (it's a shadow, honest), I reckon it's cooked perfectly.
Baker's verdict: easy, smelt delicious. I didn't really like the texture and I'm not sure whether it's because of the oats, the storage or over-baking. It should have been more gooey inside. Much better when warmed up and served with custard.
Husband rating: 6.5 (7.5 when warm with custard) - a bit on the dry side but the flavour was good.
Students' opinion: some liked the oaty texture; most wished it was less crumbly, but enjoyed the taste.

2. Cranberry and Apricot Fruit Cake

  

I'm in the odd position with this, my first ever fruit cake, of not being able to comment on how it's turned out yet, but I wanted to post my notes on the making and baking of it before I forget. It's one of those cakes which is best eaten after a period of storage, so I've had to relunctantly swaddle my creation in clingfilm and put it in a cupboard, pending a visit to friends next weekend.
Anyway, this cake took about 4 hours to make and needed 2.5 hours in the oven. It's crammed full of apricots, cranberries, sultanas, pineapple and almonds (see picture 1) and took a lot of fiddly preparation. I tried a few new techniques for this, using scissors to chop the apricots up and the mezzaluna knife for the almonds (husband's idea). The actual cake bit was very straightforward, but lots of elbow grease was needed to mix everything up.
During its baking, lovely, buttery aromas wafted from the oven: it turned out to be quite substantial leakage from the springform tin, of butter used to grease it and butter from the cake (which hadn't totally broken down in the mixing stage). I was anxious about it being undercooked, but the skewer was clean and it was a nice colour, and even though husband thought the temperature was at 120 instead of 130 (eek!), it had cooked for the required time + 5 minutes.
Baker's verdict: easy, but labour-intensive to make. Smelt lovely.
Husband rating: tbc (but he said it looked and smelt good)

Here's what it looked like when cut, after a week's storage. As expected, it was hard to get a nice, neat slice, thanks to the amount of fruity bits, but other than that, it held together very well. For my first attempt at a fruit cake, I think I've done a good job. It turned out to be lovely and moist, baked really well and actually not too heavy on the stomach (although ridiculously heavy in the tin!) Husband has confirmed that he doesn't like fruit-cake, but is willing to try some.

Husband rating: 7.75/10 (because he doesn't really like fruit cake)

1. All-in-one Victoria Sandwich

Here's my attempt at Mary Berry's recipe for the classic Victoria Sandwich. I've made these before; mainly with my Mum, but never following this 'all-in-one' method, which involves bunging all the ingredients into the mixing bowl in one go. I adapted it slightly by using half-and-half butter and Stork (just because I had some to use up). I also added buttercream rather than just jam to make it even more yummy.
Baker's verdict: really easy to make; baked to perfection - lovely and light. I did find that the top layer slid away from the bottom when I cut slices from it. Next time I'll shave some of the bottom sponge off to make a flatter surface!
Husband rating: 8.5/10 (a bit more jam please)