Daring Bakers - July: Strawberry Mirror Cake

I had mixed feelings about this cake. After my last contact with gelatine, Bavarian cream and the Daring Bakers I knew I had to make this work. And try to follow the recipe exactly (or risk incurring the [justified] Cream Puff Rough Justice(TM)) . So this is why, this time, I did my best to omit the booze from the cake.

The various shops/liquor stores/distilleries I visited trying to find the kirsch were all out. I knew I'd regret that strawberry liqueur bender I went on around the last days of June... who knew it would be so easy to dry up all the sources within 50 miles... and what chronic bad timing!

Anyway, as you can see the recipe was followed precisely. Apart from the big flat rectangular sponge bit. And the measuring the dimensions of cake tins bit. And American cup sizes bit... oh and the powdered gelatine bit... hmm precisely... what's baking without a little edge of your seat re-jigging of things hey? Hey?!?!?!

A few DBs had there birthdays this month, I decided to take my cake into work. bet none used plates like this!:

Yes, I bet my bosses were very impressed... :-)

I don't even like Pooh et al but it's a birthday cake, novelty plates were called for!

The smart (or picky) people reading this would notice that there was a slight darkening of the sponge along the bottom. Any chef worth her/his weight in salt would have removed these. But I thought, no, it's up to me to show people what happens when you make basic errors. Consider yourselves taught, I won't be showing you again... The recipe called for a large flat sponge. I didn't have a baking sheet like that so I improvised. I put it in a cake time and made it twice (plus) as tall and sliced it in half...

Also, measure how high your sponges are before putting them into your cake mould. Otherwise you'll look like a right Muppet when you can see a halo of cake under your mirror... ha ha... *cue much nervous laughter*

The cake was a right pain getting to work (it's tradition to buy everyone cakes at our office). I took pics of the mirror top before I wrapped it to take to work. It was perfect when straight from the fridge, in it's little cocoon... The top got a little smudged on the way to work, I think it hadn't set properly... it was super concentrated strawberry syrup it was made from, maybe that didn't help...
The concentrated topping was needed since I'm not a big sponge fan... bit bland for me. I'm not a big cream fan either to be honest... still, how many people had one of these for their birthdays!

Would I make it again? No. Was it fun to make? I certainly wasn't bored! It was different. I'm usually a stickler for perfection, but I don't feel the need to perfect this cake like I do the Gateau St Honore...

Anyway, thanks to Peabody for choosing this challenge. It was certainly something I've never seen before, and I guess I enjoyed making it too. :-)

Check out the other Darers here!

Recipes are for the... well, prepared...

Looks like a veggie feast doest it?!

Well apart from the chunks of black pudding sausages it is! :-D Those are the purple looking things. There's also goats cheese, onions, garlic, shredded cucumber in there too. The "filler" is just eggs and a dash of double cream (with salt and pepper). I used store-bought shortcrust pasty because I have a life; blind baked it using greaseproof paper and dried beans to keep the base from rising.

The onions were cooked under the sausages under a hot grill; Then put into a frying pan with crushed garlic and, right at the end, the shredded cucumber (that's the healthy bit kids ;-)).

I cooked it for about 20 mins at 190C, or until the goats cheese had bronzed and the centre had solidified somewhat. I didn't want it rock hard though.

A drizzle of EV olive oil would have been lovely, but I used Worcestershire sauce instead :-)




I made this bread a week before the quiche, but it would have been nice together I guess. It's your basic loaf of bread, but I added some poppy seeds and some saffron to the mix. Interesting... gives it a nice colour, and the poppy seeds work really well with cheese...

Poppy Explosion

Yes, the long thin one was the perfect size for a hot dog. If I ate such rubbish... *ahem* I experimented more with this batch of bread. I wanted some nice airy rolls to soak up the sauce for my dinner... (lamb in an anchovy, rosemary and red wine sauce since you ask, but no, no pics, maybe tomorrow).

As well as trying different sizes and forms, I added more yeast then the recipe called for. And a little bicarbonate of soda. They were definitely more fluffy than usual, maybe a push it a little more next time though.



PS some people say that cockroaches will outlast a nuclear bombardment... I will still be finding poppy seeds in my kitchen until the last star in the universe puffs out it's last light particle!

PPS that's a long time from now.

PPPS there are no cockroaches in MY kitchen!

Worlds Best Tasting Chicken

Farmhouse Direct's chicken is just simply wonderful. It has such a rich chicken flavour that I just couldn't bear to hide it. It was good enough to just eat on its own... but I was (eternally) hungry so... PS it costs quite a bit, but you're paying for quality so... beans on toast for me for the rest of the week!

Look how juicy that is! Oh, yeah... I quickly pan fried the chicken with just a little seasoning, then just finished it off in the oven for 10-15 mins (around 200C ish) til the juices are clear and the skewer is hot to the touch (of your lip). Leave to rest.

I made this dish two days running, and just varied the cream sauce. The sauce is made in the same frying-pan that the chicken was started in (which was transferred to a roasting tray for its stint in the oven), to which was added a little butter and lots of field mushrooms (sliced). Then I added a touch of chicken stock before the recipes diverges...

1) a drizzle of white wine vinegar, a little wholegrain mustard and the pan juices from the resting chicken.

2) sliced garlic, little bit more butter and again the pan juices.

The final ingredient was Jersey double cream (almost clotted!).


This is tonight's version (2).

I served the juicy, succulent, aromatic chicken sliced and by itself, so I could choose how much mushroom/sauce I wanted with the chicken. The sticky rice helped to soak up the sauce.

Rosemary and Cremé de Cassis II

This is my second try in recent days. The first attempt bugged me... so this time I tied it in a pie crust. I tried the icing a different way too and it seems to have set and not run all over the place!

Oh, the orange bit on the pastry at the bottom of the pic is orange marmalade... the crust broke on me so I tried to glue it together. It worked as far as I can tell.

Rosemary and Creme de Cassis fun

My colleague "Stuie" had invited a few work colleagues around to his for lunch at his nice little place in Old Trafford, Manchester. The food was delightful, home made stuffed breads and "zucchini" bakes etc... but he had also challenged me to make a dessert using two things you wouldn't usually associate with each other.

His white chocolate and basil base with strawberries and balsamic vinegar dressing looked great and was divine to eat. Now it was my turn. The below picture shows how my first and only attempt looked the night before. Last minute as usual! No recipe either, but it felt right... silly boy.


Lovely looking isn't it? It is a rosemary chocolate base with a cremé de cassis icing. ...the not too sweet topping really helped the not sweet at all base and together they tasted divine. All you nee to do is warm some double cream with some crushed rosemary, then after removing the rosemary just dump in some dark chocolate. At this point saner people than I would be thinking this would make a great pie filling... too easy I lament!

The topping is made from golden icing sugar (regular readers would know how much the golden sugar has messed me about in the past!) with a few tablespoons 0f water and cremé de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur).

This is where it all goes wrong! Because the golden sugar made the icing a dirty cream colour I had to put more blackcurrent liqueur in to turn it pink/blackcurranty. This meant it was never going to bl**dy set properly, and would mean it spread out on-top on the choccy (see pic). In The next morning it had separated a bit too. No worries, I'll just roll it, to make it a) easier to roll , and b) easier to eat.

I could b1tch about why it went wrong, but suffice to say it took me longer than planned to get to said lunch and consequently my dessert had melted into each other. The rescue plan was then to be able to spread it onto digestive biscuits, but since I'd tried to rescue it by putting it into the fridge it was too cool to spread... so (if this were a film Leslie Nielsen would be playing me) to soften it I put it in a oven that was cooling down after being used... it only needed a few seconds...

The chocolate fondue was nice ( :'-( ) but was blown out of the water by the strawberries and white choc... oh well, live and learn!!!

Ganache bites

So what to do when you buy 100% cocoa solids chocolate? It's a bit bitter to eat on its own, so I went back to my favourite gooey recipe and tried that.

I emptied the chunks of choc (about 73g after I snacked on a few pieces to see what it was like - It made my pint of bitter taste sweet!) into a ban-marie with a little double cream (equal measures -ish). The simmering water melts the chocolate at a slow pace, so it doesn't split. At least in theory, the 100% stuff isn't half delicate! You're not to work it too much otherwise it can get quite bitty, but I did stir it to get the cocoa butter back in the with solids.

I added a fair bit of sugar too to sweeten it a little, and added a little drab of whisky. A 10 year old Talisker to be exact, one of the finest whiskies.

I put the concoction on a silicon mat and left it in the fridge to firm up. About 10 mins later I came back with a spoon, scooped up a little and rolled it in cocoa. Back in the fridge (minus one).

Lovely and firm at first, then they just melt on the tongue... mmmmm