The revival of Queens of Tarts...

So ladies, it’s been a little quiet on the baking front of late hasn't it? We’ve all been busy over the summer, but with the Great British Bake Off finished for another year, it’s time for the Queens of Tarts revival!

And so I put to you our latest baking challenge... CHOUX PASTRY

Choux pastry is a very light pastry dough, which apparently was first invented in 1540. Over the years that followed, the recipe of became known as pâte à popelin and was used to make popelins – which are small cakes in the shape of a woman’s breasts. Later on in the eighteenth century, a patissier called Avice, used the light pastry dough to create sweet filled buns, which (inadvertently) resembled cabbages. And so, thanks to Avice and his sweet cabbage buns, we now enjoy all sorts of choux pastry treats.*

Crisp, puffed up choux pastry is light and airy due to the high water content in the mixture. The water, which creates steam during the baking process, forces the pastry outwards, giving the pastry shell a crispy cavity which can be filled with sweet or savoury fillings to make scrumptious snacks and puddings.

From éclairs and profiteroles to fancy swans and croque-en-bouche show-stoppers, choux pastry is often filled with a soft cream filling, and topped with chocolate or a fruit glaze.

So without further ado.. dust down your aprons, pre-heat your ovens, BAKE!

*Extra points for those who remembered their high-school French, choux = cabbage!

Hannah's Chocolate Meringue Pie

When you mention 'Meringue Pie', most people will think of lemon meringue pie, which is a classic. I'm not a big fan of said classic, and so went for a lesser known chocolate meringue pie. I was a bit hesitant with this month's bake, due to my complete lack of experience with using meringue, but it was actually quite a simple dessert to make. I also wouldn't like to use the word cheat when it came to my pastry case, i'm not sure of a more suitable word, but cheat seems a bit mean.

Ingredients
Filling

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 5 tablespoons cocoa
• 3 tablespoons corn flour
• 2 cups milk
• 3 egg yolks, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 pie shell

Meringue

• 3 egg whites
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 6 tablespoons sugar

Instructions
In a saucepan I mixed the sugar, cocoa, corn flour and salt; whilst gradually adding milk. This cooked over a medium-high heat until it bubbled and thickened. This needed to be stirred constantly, which i found out after ignoring it for a few seconds and returned to a thick, lumpy mixture. I reduced the heat and stirred it for quite a while until the mixture was smooth again. The mixture was remove from heat and I stirred about 1 cup of the hot filling into the egg yolks, returned it to the saucepan and brought it to a gentle boil for approx 2 minutes. I then removed the pan from the heat and stirred in the vanilla, before pouring the hot filling in to the pie crust.

For the meringue, I used my electric hand whisk to beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until soft peaks formed. I then gradually added the sugar and continued to beat until stiff and glossy. I spread this evenly over the filling, and made sure to go right to the edges to seal the meringue and minimise leaks/explosions. This then went in the oven at 150c (fan) for 12-15 minutes.

I have to say that it did look pretty impressive and the smell of the pie was really yummy! The chocolate mixture was very similar to that of chocolate custard, but wasn't overly sweet and went really well with the meringue.

Chocolate filling

End Result

Hannah's Polka Dot Cheesecake

Like quite a few people, i've discovered and become quite addicted to Pinterest. So after searching for cheesecake inspiration, there was plenty to choose from.

I chose a cheesecake that was vanilla but with chocolate 'polka dots' in it, with the idea that when you cut in to the cheesecake you would also see dots as well. However as i'm not really a fan of a buttery biscuit base (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfeyUGZt8nk), I chose to swap this for a chocolate brownie base instead.

Ingredients
Filling
16 oz softened cream cheese
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
2 oz dark chocolate, melted
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup sour cream

Brownie Base
113g butter (room temperature)
113g dark chocolate
1 cup sugar
2 Eggs
1/4 milk
1 cup plain flour

Instructions
I started by pre-heating my fan oven to 155c and lightly greasing my 9 inch spring form cheesecake pan.
When measuring out my ingredients, I was excited to use my new scales, kindly bought for me for my bday by fellow tarts Felicity and Jess and as some of the measurements were in cups, I finally had an excuse to use my adorable duck measuring cups!

For the base I melted the butter and chocolate over a low heat until it was smooth, removed from the heat and then mixed in the sugar. After this mixture had cooled for about 5 minutes I added the eggs and milk and used my electric hand whisk to blend together (this needs to be done quickly to prevent the eggs from cooking and scrambling). Lastly I mixed in the flour, before spooning in to the cheesecake pan and baking for roughly 25 minutes.

For the filling I used by standalone mixer to beat the cream cheese until smooth and gradually added the sugar. I added the eggs one at a time on low speed, followed by the vanilla and sour cream.  I had to occasionally stop and scrape the sides of the bowl to make sure it was all mixing together. Out of this mixture I then took 1/2 cup of the cheesecake filling and set aside.

I melted the dark chocolate in a bain-marie and then stirred the chocolate into the filling I had set aside.

I poured the plain filling into the pan, smoothing out to the edges.  To make the dots, I filled a piping bag with the chocolate mixture and placed dots all over the cheesecake until the chocolate mixture was used up.
This was then placed in the oven and baked for 1 hour. When cooked, I turned off the oven and left the cheesecake in the oven for an additional 1 hr, which stops the top from cracking.  This was then meant to be put in the fridge for at least 24 hours, but that didn't happen, as it smelt so good and surely it doesn't need that long to cool?!

The end result was really delicious and although the dots weren't as circular as the ones I saw on Pinterest, it had the desired effect and looked quite pretty. If I was to make this again, I would use less of the brownie base as it did end up being quite thick.

Measuring cups

End Result

Sarah's Raspberry Cheesecake

Having just posted my February bake - I've realised I should break away from baking with raspberries!

March's baking challenge called for a cheesecake. I must admit, I have a trusty lemon cheesecake recipe which I usually call upon - however I thought I'd make something I've not baked before - so I went for a baked cheesecake.

This recipe was from Rachel Allen, and I agree with the description on the BBC Food website - this was really light and fluffy. I used a bigger tin (23 cm) than the recipe called for (20 cm) but I just upped the recipe for the biscuit base and added 100g more crème fraiche and an extra egg.

Biscuit base
225g digestive biscuits
75g butter

Filling
500g ricotta
300g crème fraiche
175g caster sugar
4 eggs
zest and juice of a lemon
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp vanilla extract
250g raspberries

 This was really quick and easy to make as it required no whisking of cream or egg whites for example. Mix all the ingredients together, and stir through half the raspberries. Pour on top of the biscuit base, and sprinkle the rest of the raspberries on top. Bake for 40 minutes at 180C and leave to cool before chilling in the fridge for a few hours before serving.

We had a few friends over for Sunday lunch who were worthy participants for the taste test. This is Chris with his first portion...

I was surprised I liked this so much as I normally prefer refrigerated cheesecakes to baked cheesecakes, but this was so light and airy I would be temped to make this again - although I might try using blueberries next time, just to add some variety to my 5-a day!

Sarah's Raspberry and Amaretto Bakewell Tart

Apologies to my fellow QoTs, I am VERY late with my contribution for February! However, here is the my version of a Bakewell Tart. I followed (roughly!) a recipe from The Hairy Bikers which used ground almonds in the pastry for some extra almond goodness! The pastry was easy to make and very good to handle and roll out.

For the almond pastry, blitz all the dry ingredients in a food processor until breadcrumbs  then add the eggs and bring together using the 'pulse' setting of the food processor.

Almond pastry

425g plain flour

250g unsalted butter

100g caster sugar

50g ground almonds

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

2 egg yolks

Chill in fridge for an hour before rolling out and lining a 23cm loose-bottomed tart tin. Bake blind for 15 mins at 180 C. When the pastry has cooled, spread with the raspberry jam.

Filling

400g ground almonds

175g caster sugar

8 eggs

1/2 tsp almond essence (I added a good slug of Amaretto instead!)

3 tbsp raspberry jam

50g flaked almonds to decorate the top

For the filling, mix everything together, saving the flaked almonds to sprinkle on the top. Bake at 165 C for 25-30 mins. 

This smelled so lovely when it came out the oven, it was a bit difficult to wait until pudding time! Tim really loved it and I will definitely make one again, the pastry was lovely and crisp with no soggy bottom! 

There was so much left that I froze the rest of it and have been defrosting a slice or two at at time. Goes well with custard, or vanilla ice cream.

Jess's Bakewell Tarts

Yummy yummy Bakewell Tarts! One of my absolute faves, and as it turns out.. really easy to make! So.. first of all i have to confess that i used shop bought pastry. Next time im definitely going to make my own pastry but i didnt quite have enough time this time around.

I took my recipe from the Great British Book of Baking. Once i had made one cake,  really how easy and yummy it was, i then went on a bit of a baking rampage and the following night i made another two cakes, and also attempted a batch of mini Bakewells (following the same recipe for both types).

 Firstly, i rolled out the pastry and shaped it around the tin, taking care to remove all air pockets. I then prodded some holes into the bottom of the pastry with a fork, and then spread on a layer of raspberry jam.

I then mixed together butter, sugar, egg, flower, baking powder, ground almonds and almond essence. Then i just dolloped this on top of the jam, spread it around and put it in the over for 30mins. Once it was cooked, i made a lemon icing sugar, and spead it over the top of the tart, then dropped a few flaked almonds on top.. and hey presto!

I used the same method for the mini Bakewells, which tasted good but didnt look quite as impressive as the larger cakes.

I will defo make these again as they were very quick and simple, and tasted great!

March: Cheesecake

After recently visiting the big US of A, it was obvious that cheesecake was one of their most celebrated desserts. We stumbled across an eatery named 'The Cheesecake Factory' which had the most amazing variety of cheesecakes you could ever imagine. I took a sneaky photo as seen below:

The earliest mention of cheesecake comes from Greece, but is now a popular pudding all across the world. Cheesecakes are very versatile and are primarily made up of cream cheese and a base of hard biscuits, but after that the possibilities are endless. They can be baked or unbaked and can have many toppings with strawberry and vanilla being well established classics.

This month ladies, we will be trying out cheesecakes, lets try and do something less traditional and see what we come up with!

Felicity's Bakewell Tart

This is one of my absolute favourites so I couldn't wait to get started!

I used the recipe from The Great British Book of Baking and it was brilliant. I decided not to make the pastry by hand (extra points to anyone who does!) and instead bought sweet shortcrust pastry.

Once I'd rolled the pastry and lined a flan tin, I covered with blackcurrant jam - home-made by mum Pointer, no less!

The filling was straightforward and I beat the butter, sugar, egg, flour, ground almonds and almond essence altogether by hand. I spread it evenly on to the pastry and popped in the oven.

Once cooked I left to cool, then topped with icing sugar and flaked almonds - and voila:

This is, without a doubt, the best thing I have ever made - it was absolutely delicious! Special thanks to my assistant Leanne for her baking/tasting help!

February: Bakewell Tart

For February's theme I've chosen the Bakewell Tart - what better way to celebrate our Derbyshire heritage?!

Historically these beauties come from the small Derbyshire town of Bakewell, right in the heart of the Peak District, dating back to the Tudor times (or possibly even earlier).

There are a few different versions:

• the traditional Bakewell pudding - made with a puff pastry base and a creamy custard topping
• the newer Bakewell tart  - made with sweet shortcrust pastry, raspberry jam and filled with an almond infused sponge-like filling (frangipane) 
• the cherry Bakewell -  individual tarts covered in a layer of fondant and topped with a glacé cherry.

I'll leave that decision up to you! 

Sarah's Amaretto Cupcakes

So, for my January bake I made Amaretto and Orange Cupcakes. This is a bit of an invention I must admit, however I am quite impressed with them. I just made a basic cupcake mix, and then added the zest of a large orange, and about 50 ml of Amaretto.



I tried to lighten the calorie load by not using butter icing so I used Royal icing instead - with half an Amaretti biscuit crumbled on top - yum yum!

Felicity's Chocolate Peanut Heaven Cupcakes

I love nuts (!) so for January's cupcake theme I chose chocolate peanut heaven cakes from my new Cupcakes & Cookies book from Lakeland (thanks Santa!). It doesn't get much nuttier than this...

The cupcake recipe was a rich mixture of butter, eggs, sugar, flour, cocoa, ground almonds and melted dark chocolate. The resulting mixture was quite thick, but not particularly fluffy like the book suggested.

However they rose well and after 25 minutes in the oven they came out smelling delicious. I left them to cool on my makeshift cooling rack (the upside-down draining board!)

For the chocolate ganache topping I heated cream before adding milk chocolate to melt. After refrigerating for 30 minutes I added (almost a whole pot of) peanut butter.

I forwent the dreaded piping bag in favour of a spatula and covered the cakes in the ganache, topping with crushed peanut brittle. There was an excess of ganache so I heaped a small mountain on to each cake...

My baking buddy and special guest taster Leanne rated them a 7.5 - very rich, nutty and definitely best served chilled!

Jess's Raspberry Trifle Cupcakes

Because i havent got round to making the macaroons yet, i thought i would tackle a slightly tricky cupcake recipe. The recipe i used comes from the Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book, and it took around 3 hours to make (i seriously regretted starting hem at 9.30pm!!)...

INGREDIENTS;
(enough for 12 cupcakes)
For the sponge:
80g unsalted butter
280g caster sugar
240g plain flour
1tbsp baking flour
pinch of salt
240ml whole milk
1tsp vanilla essence
2 large eggs

For the topping and inside:
500ml whole milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
5 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
30g plain flour
30g cornflour
200ml double cream
24 raspberries
100g raspberry jam

So... firstly i mixed together the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt until they resembled breadcrumbs. Was one the biggest downfalls of this recipe was that i used a handheld electric whisk.. with a freestanding electric whisk the whole process would have been a lot faster and easier.

I then whisked together the milk, vanilla essence and eggs (by hand),then poured it into the breadcrumb mixture to create a batter. This batter was then divided into 12 cases of a muffin tin, and then put into the oven for around 20minutes.

While the cakes were cooking, i made the custard for the filling and topping. Firstly, i mixed the egg yolks, sugar, cornflour and plain flour to make a paste. I then put the milk and vanilla essence into a saucepan and brought to the boil. I then removed this from the boil and mixed the paste and hot milk together, then brought it back to boil, ensuing everything was fully cooked through. I then removed it from the boil and emptied the mixture into a baking tray, covered in clingfilm to cool down. By this time the cakes were ready to come out of the oven and cool down.

Once the custard was cooled, i poured it back into a large bowl and gave it a good stir to remove any lumps. In another bowl, i whipped the double cream into soft peaks, and then folded it into the custard.

Now comes the tricky part... i then had to hollow out the cakes (with the help of my glamorous assistant Tyrone). Being careful not to remove too much sponge from the cakes making them breakable, we hollow out the middles, and added a raspberry, raspberry jam and some custard into each cake. We then replaced the cut out bit of cake back onto the top of each cake, piped the custard onto the top, and then aded a raspberry to the top!

Finito! So.. they took rather a while.. and were quite tricky in places, BUT were very yummy! I took them into work and everyone loved them, and i would definitely make them again. YUMMYYYY!

Hannah's Red Velvet Cupcakes

So, January is cupcake month, a perfect topic to bring us out of the doom and gloom of post Christmas blues although not so great for the January diets.

Santa was very kind to me and sent me a new cookery book stand and James got me a mixer! After flicking through the Hummingbird 'Cake Days' cookery book I settled on Red Velvet Cupcakes - something i've always wanted to try and make. Throughout the making of these cupcakes, I really loved the vibrant red colour, which made making them even more enjoyable.

I firstly mixed butter and sugar and then broke the eggs in, one at a time to make a batter. In another bowl I mixed cocoa powder, vanilla essence and the whole container of red food colouring (I used Dr Oetker) in to a paste. I then incorporated this in to the batter and mixed until fully combined. I then added the flour and salt, which was added to the mixture, alternated with buttermilk. I couldn't find any buttermilk so instead used low fat plain yoghurt. Finally I mixed cider vinegar and bicarbonate of soda and added it to the batter, as per the pic below.

The mixture was then evenly distributed amongst cupcakes cases (a mixture of silicon and paper) as per below.

Whilst the cupcakes were cooling, I cracked on with the cream cheese frosting. I again used the mixer for this, which made a really light and fluffy frosting, which was made up of butter, icing sugar and cream cheese.

I covered all but one of the cupcakes with the frosting and then broke up the remaining cupcake over the others. I chose to cover them using a palette knife rather than a piping bag, however I think it's obvious I need some practice!

As the cakes cooked, they lost quite a bit of their vibrant colour and looked mostly brown, so maybe next time I should use even more food colouring. The cakes tasted nice and I even took some in to work, which seemed to go down well. I found the cakes quite sweet and they have their own taste which can't really be compared, apart from maybe toffee-ish. All in all, I would make these again, as would be a good recipe to have up your sleeve for birthdays and celebrations.

Hannah's Chocolate Macarons

Before embarking on this month's challenge, I had heard from numerous people that macaron making was not an easy thing to do and often if you succeeded this was down to luck rather than anything else. Suitably worried I decided to do some research and see if i could find a recipe that seemed to be more hit, than miss. Firstly there was the discussion on whether to make french or italian meringue and some people say you should leave the macarons for an hour before cooking, others 15 minutes, also some say to use 4 day old egg whites and others suggest fresh. So after all this conflicting information I thought i'd just try the simplest recipe and keep my fingers crossed.

I used the recipe from Delicious Magazine

The first part is to mix the egg whites in to stiff peaks and add the sugar. In another bowl I sieved ground almonds, icing sugar and cocoa powder, as I was making chocolate macarons. The almonds took quite a while to sieve and I sieved the mixture twice to make sure that it didn't have any lumps.

The plan is then to fold all of the ingredients together. I then added all of my ingredients to a piping bag; I find it easier to put the piping bag inside a vase and turn the outside of the bag around the top of the vase so that I can scoop the mixture in without getting a lot stuck to the side. I found the mixture to be really thick (slightly worrying as most of the recipes i'd seen had said the mixture was really runny). I soon discovered my first mistake of attached a star nozzle, rather than a circular nozzle. When piping the mixture the star nozzle made the mixture come out in swirls, which aren't ideal when wanting a smooth macaron shell. I then dropped the trays down on the surface to get rid of any air bubbles and allow the mixture to spread out.

After 30 minutes (supposedly to allow the macarons to get feet?!) I popped them in the oven. After 15 minutes or so I took them out the oven. They did smell amazing, but looked quite thick and a bit more substantial that macarons normally look.

I used a recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book for the filling. The filling is normally used for Whoopie Pies and is made up from unsalted butter, cocoa butter, icing sugar and vanilla marshmallow fluff. The marshmallow fluff is literally a tub of marshmallow, like you get inside of chocolate teacakes.

Once the macaron pieces had cooled, I tried to find equal (ish) sized pieces and pair them together, whilst battling to scrape them off the supposed grease proof baking paper. I then spooned some of the mixture on one side of the macaron and pieced together.

So, the final result tasted really good, however was of thicker texture than a standard macaron and was by no stretch of the imagination a smooth finish. They went down really well with the family and my boyfriend said they tasted like the ones in the shop (however I feel he might be slightly bias).

I'm not sure I would try to make them again, as although they tasted okay they didn't look macaron like and will stick to buying them in future, unless one of my fellow Queen's of Tarts has managed to perfect the art of macaron making ...

Sarah's attempt at macaroons!

Well - these were a bit of a disaster!

For this month's challenge bake, I decided to use Lorraine Pascale's recipe for macaroons which I found on the BBC food website - see link here http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/macaroons_04669.

I used raspberries to flavour them, but I added a bit of red food colouring to make the colour more intense without making the mixture too sloppy. Overall the recipe was easy to follow and quite simple, but I was struggling without the use of an electric whisk for the egg whites. As a result, I don't think the mixture was stiff enough, and piping these babies out on greaseproof paper was a nightmare. I rested them before baking but after an hour I still didn't have a skin on the top - perhaps this is why they aren't nice and shiny. 

Although you wouldn't think it from the photos I did attempt to use a template to keep my macaroons the same size! For the filling I used fresh cream flavoured with rose water. 

Not sure that I'd get many points from Paul Hollywood for consistency...! They were nice though and I would have another go once I get an electric whisk (don't worry, it's on my Christmas present list!)

Katherine's Victoria Sponge

The classic victoria sponge - so recognisable in taste, the pressure was on to ensure the perfect bake - so here goes...

I've obviously baked this before, and having always used Delia Smith's recipe from 'Delia's Complete Illustrated Cookery Course - Classic Edition' (a firm favourite of the Mother!), and found no issues with the recipe, I don't usually deem it necessary to deviate. However, I thought I'd use my new cookery book - 'Mary Berry's Complete Cookbook' and give this a test drive (I did have Delia on hand to compare and contrast).

Firstly I measured everything out into one bowl - something I don't usually do, as I usually do it a step at a time, but it seemed to work just fine. The tweak I did make though was cutting the butter up into small cubes before adding to the mixture - a tip I picked up for a celebrity chef programme (I think it may have been Lorraine Pascale), as it helps combine the mixture quicker than one large lump.

I poured the mixture as evenly as possibe into the tins - and tapped them on the work surface (a Gordon Ramsey tip to release any air bubbles) and popped them in for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
With a prod and a glance, I removed the cakes, and left them to cool in their tins, before removing and putting on a cooling tray.

Whilst they were cooling I got to work on the butter cream - a recipe handed down from the mother - so probably from a cookery magazine from yester year! I started off by creaming the butter and icing sugar together with a electric handwhisk (mod con that I thought I'd give a whirl) - I used Lorraine Pascale's tip of putting a clean tea towel over the top of the whisk and bowl to ensure the cloud of icing sugar didn't fill my kitchen - which worked a treat (thanks LP!). After getting the mixture going, I decided to get the trusty wooden spoon, and get creaming by hand - very strenuous work, but a light fluffy mixture was a happy result!

Once the sponges were cooled out of their tins, I spread the buttercream onto the bottom layer, and the Strawberry Jam on the other sponge, and quickly (whilst crossing everything and holding my breath) sandwiched the two sponges together! Added a strawberry 'garnish' and a dusting of icing sugar, and the taste test could commence!

My tasting panel was my housemate Jen - I served hers with a piping hot cup of tea, and she commented on the moistness of the sponge, and the nice flavours coming through. The others on my panel were colleagues at work, they commented on the flavours and thickness of the sponge, getting a varying of results - 8.5, and a 9.5 out of 10.

As I hadn't made this for a while, and had a bad experience with a Victoria Sponge at Jubilee (I don't like to talk about it!), I was pretty pleased with the result, although my even distribution of cake mix wasn't quite a success with one sponge slightly larger on one side.

(For my birthday soiree, I had an afternoon tea theme in the day and baked the sponge again, using the same recipe, and methods, and I am pleased to report, we had no wonky sponges! This time however, I whipped up some cream, and layered that with some strawberry jam for the filling, and topped the cake with more whipped cream and an array of fruit on top. It definitely was aesthetically pleasing! I also made some Mini Victoria Sponges and used the same recipe, but splitting them into 12 victoria sponge holes - a tin designed especially for this purpose (I was on a waiting list for this tin at Lakeland!!!) 6 Lemon Curd and Buttercream, and 6 Classic Victoria Sponge with Strawberry Jam and Buttercream - both a resounding success!)