Hilary Orchard: 2010

Thursday, 28 October 2010

The Wedding Season

Last weekend my brother got married. It was a beautiful, home-made wedding and one of my jobs was to make 120 mini blueberry cheesecakes and 120 rose cupcakes. I was so pleased with the outcome of these and it was mainly up to the type of piping nozzle I used.

If you want to create this effect, the nozzle you use is really important. If the 'grooves' aren't long/deep enough it won't make the large swirls needed to give the petal-like shape. The nozzle I used is the Wilton 1M, and it's great for creating that signature cupcake swirl aswell.

Something for the Autumn

There's something about the look of toffee apples (or candy apples for you Americans) that just calls out to you. They're so shiny and enticing, promising to be the best thing you've bitten in to in a long time, yet I can't help but feel it's always a bit of an anti-climax.

The coating is insanely sweet, although I guess the name should give that away really, and I always end up thinking I should have just gone for an average joe apple instead.

However, they are just so beautiful and after seeing Adam's Scary Apples over on Matt Bites blog I had to give them a try. I love the twigs in place of lollypop sticks, but I coloured mine more of a cherry red. I must point out here that his are a hundred times more elegant than mine, however as I've said before- there's nothing wrong with the word rustic!

http://mattbites.com/2009/10/13/adams-scary-apples/

Tuesday, 19 October 2010

Macarons- To Be or Not To Be

Macarons are notoriously tricky little things, but these were the results from my first attempt which really suprised me. They were a little too chewy inside but I was chuffed with the outcome. A while after I made these I did some work experience at 'Belle Epoque' a lovely patisserie in London. The head chef was having an experimenting day, trying out new flavour combinations for the shop and he taught me to make and pipe the ganache filling.

Pierre Herme is the king of Macarons, however I think Helene Dujardin of Tartelette is definately the queen. She creates the most amazing flavour combinations and is definately the one to tell you how to make them. So here's a link for you if you fancy a challenge...

http://www.mytartelette.com/2009/05/recipe-powdered-strawberry-macarons.html

Less is More

Simple decorations are often the most effective, so for these mini toffee cupcakes I decided to try marbling some chocolate. Somehow, whilst melting my dark chocolate in the microwave, I tempered it. I melted it in bursts of about 30 seconds, pulling it out and stirring in between. The resulting chocolate had a good snap and shine to it which was exactly what I wanted.

To create the marbled effect, I drizzled melted white chocolate all over a piece of acetate, then spread some dark chocolate over the top and left to set. This would be fine for decorations that are going to lie flat, however next time I do this I'm going to drizzle and spread some more white chocolate on top of the dark chocolate and put another piece of acetate on top, so that the marbled effect will be on both sides of the chocolate.

The white wire cake stand was a birthday gift from my best friend...she knows me so well!

The KitchenAid and My First Roulade

For my birthday I was given a lot of baking related goodies, including this beautiful special edition KitchenAid mixer. KitchenAid do a huge range of colours but I settled on this candy apple red which I think will stay classic in the kitchen.

I decided to use it to make my first raspberry roulade from a new recipe book given to me by a friend. It went down a treat and meant I had an excuse to crack out my new pastry forks, cake lifter and glass cake dome!

A Beast of a Birthday Cake

I asked my boyfriend what type of cake he wanted for his birthday. He came up with: a chocolate cake with dark, white and milk chocolate chunks inside, a non-fudgey chocolate icing with some nuts and fruit as toppings...The Man knows what he likes!

Above is my final creation. It was a bit of a trial and error, with some frustration with burnt caramel and melting buttercream but I was so pleased with the final result.

It took me two goes to get Martha Stewart's caramel dipped hazelnuts right but they were worth the mess. If you want to give them a go yourself here's a link to her website:

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/caramel-dipped-hazelnuts

In her recipe she plunges her pan of caramel into an ice bath. When I did this, my caramel instantly hardened and cracked so I can only assume she used a very very heavy bottomed pan. On my second attempt I skipped this step and just worked quickly before the caramel set which worked nicely.

Playing with Pulled Sugar

I really like individual desserts and patisseries. Not only do they look delicate, they make you feel like it's been made just for you. For these strawberry mousse cakes I decided to have a crack at making some pulled sugar decoration and guess what.....

...it is SO fun to make. I felt like willy wonka. I coloured mine with the tiniest drop of red food colouring to give it a pale pink hue to go with the mousse, but you could make it any colour you like. You can twist it, twirl it and mould it into whatever shape you like, but just make sure you don't take too long as it sets relatively quickly. The more you pull it, the more opaque it becomes.

The world is your sugary oyster.

Chocolate Yoghurt Loaf Cake

There are times when all you want is a nice big piece of warm chocolate cake, but have neither the ingredients or energy to make a super-duper triple layer chocolate fudge cake. This recipe is for those times. It produces a wonderfully moist cake with a really chocolatey flavour, which is perfect with a good cup of tea.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb. of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter at room temp OR stork marge
1 1/4 cups caster sugar
2 eggs, room temp.
1/4 cup milk OR water
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup natural plain OR greek yoghurt

Method

Pre-heat oven to 350f/ 180c
Grease and line a 9x5 inch loaf pan or 2 smaller ones. Stir together flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter/marge and sugar (it should produce a mix resembling wet sand).
Beat the eggs into the butter/sugar mix one at a time, beating well after each addition. Using room temperature eggs will eliminate the possibility of the mix curdling at this point. If your eggs are straight from the fridge, pop them in a bowl of hot from the tap water for a couple of minutes before cracking into mixture. Fold in 1/3 of the flour mixture.

In a small bowl whisk together the water/milk, cocoa, vanilla and yoghurt until smooth.
Add 1/2 of this mixture along with another 1/3 of the flour mixture into the butter mixture and fold in.

Stir in the remaining yoghurt mix and flour until no streaks of flour are left.

Pour into loaf tin and bake for 55-60 minutes. Leave to cool in the tin for ten minutes (if you can bear it!) then turn out onto a wire rack.

I know, It's a bit of a faff adding things bit by bit, but this will prevent the flour being over worked which would create tough cake.

Tarts Two Ways

This isn't technically a tart. It's a cake masquerading as a tart...naughty little thing. I absolutely love the look of fruit tarts, they are a celebration of fruit in the most simple and delicious way. These nectarines were amazing, I just can't explain the aroma that wafted out of these beauties. So, I wanted to use them accordingly. I made a simple sponge base, layered on the nectarines and once baked, covered in a black cherry glaze.

Glazing a fruit tart is essential and making a glaze is really simple so there is no excuse! All you have to do is put some jam into a saucepan, any flavour you like- go crazy, add a little water and bring to the boil. It literally takes minutes, then just brush it all over your tart using a pastry brush.

Slicing fruit evenly will give your tart a lovely professional finish, so practice your knife skills if you have the time...but to be honest, the word 'rustic' never hurt anyone.

THIS is a tart. No masquerading here, it's in your face, absolutely 100% a tart. I made this whilst doing some work experience at the beautiful french patisserie 'Belle Epoque' in London. This is a french classic made with sweet pastry, creme patissier and glazed with apricot glaze or 'glacage'. I added the mint for a bit of decoration and to enhance my photograph, tying in with the strawberry tops and jug of mint in the background.

Attempting to Temper

Tempering chocolate is tricky business, it can take professionals a year or more to master it. When melting chocolate, if you want to get that lovely shine and snap back into it when it sets, you have to temper it. Tempering is when you precisely raise and lower the temperature of the chocolate during the melting process, afterwards adding an amount of un-melted chocolate to the melted stuff. It's very technical and I am yet to master it myself...although I did accidentally do it once when melting chocolate in the microwave but I'll come to that in a later post!

Anyway, if the chocolate overheats it causes the chocolate to 'bloom' creating a streaky surface (as you can see in the above picture). Un-tempered chocolate takes a long time to set, up to 20 minutes, has a fudgy texture and will melt in your fingers almost immediately if you pick it up. Tempered chocolate will set in 3-5 minutes!

I wanted to practice my food styling/ photography so used my chocolate anyway, layering it with raspberries and chantilly cream.

...another cheeky appearance from the Portmeirion too

Selective Styling with Almond and White Chocolate Cookies

When photographing food, try to keep the tones of the image the same throughout. This way the viewers attention will be on your product rather than the background. For example in this image if I had put a bright red vase in the background instead, it would pull you away from looking at the cookies. Having props the same tone throughout creates a much more pleasing composition for the eye.

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

Making your cakes and bakes look lovely doesn't have to be time consuming and fiddly. To decorate these cupcakes I just spooned on the icing using a regular large spoon, swirled it about a bit, chopped the sides off some strawberries and plopped them on top- et voila!

The Secret to the Perfect Blueberry Muffin

The perfect blueberry muffin recipe is a mystical thing, you know it's out there but it seems to do a very good job of hiding itself. I haven't tried many blueberry muffin recipes but this one could be a strong contender! I think the addition of any liquid to a cake batter will produce a dense and moist crumb, but be careful as too much will make a stodgy mess which won't be fun to eat. Using blueberries when they are at their peak in season will also give you great results as they'll have a much sweeter and juicier flavour, creating those lovely swirls of purple inside your muffins.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter (room temp.)
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract (always use extract rather than artificial flavourings, the difference is immeasurable)
2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tblsp cornfour
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups blueberries

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 375f/ 190c/180c fan.
Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. In a jug, beat the eggs lightly, then gradually add to the butter/sugar mixture, beating well after each addition. If the mix begins to curdle at this point add a tablespoon or two of the flour to bring it back.
Replace 2 tablespoons of the flour with cornflour and sift with the baking powder and salt into wet mixture. Mix the vanilla extract into the milk then pour into the mixture, stirring as you pour until all is combined. Don't over mix as this will cause the end result to be tough rather than light, don't worry if there are still a few pesky lumps!
Fold in the blueberries and pour into lined muffin tins, no more than 3/4 full otherwise they will spill over the sides during baking. Put into the oven immediately to capture the rise which will form lovely 'muffin tops' and bake for 25 minutes.

Banoffee Cupcakes

My first foray into food styling! The cake stand is Portmeirion's Secret Garden pattern for John Lewis, I love this pattern, it's very delicate but hard wearing- mine has taken a few knocks!

These are banana cupcakes, filled with dulce de leche, topped with whipped cream and dusted with cocoa powder.

To fill the cupcakes, just scoop out a little hole in the centre and using a teaspoon, drop in the dulce de leche. You can find dulce de leche in most supermarkets now, Bon Maman does a great one called Confiture de Caramel.