A month of cake

Since graduating a month ago i have returned home to my job at the Rocket House Cafe. It is a place that is beautifully situated on the Norfolk coast and through the enthusiasm of my boss Vivi and my past colleague and friend Elliott, my love and knowledge of food has undoubtedly blossomed.

This month has seen me really test my baking skills, first mastering mass catering. I do not care what anyone says it is bloody hard to cater for 70/80 people, even with the simple theme of a mad hatter's tea party! My poor friend Liv came for a visit and ended up being roped into making millions of chili jam sandwiches, mini stilton and walnut scones and icing a moustache cake. 

All in all we made some really delicious quiches, heart shaped sandwiches, scone canapes, cupcakes, meringues as well as many other things. Seeing it all on the table made all the hard work worth it and it was especially lovely as it was for my friend Vivi's 30th birthday allowing her to enjoy her party without the worry of all the cooking. 

Although the heart-shaped chili jam sandwiches looked beautiful, i did feel slightly guilty when one or two children went to take a bite, what they thought was a sumptuously sweet raspberry jam sandwich and then got a large dose of chili!

This was only my second weekend home and my baking has continued in the form of pasties, millionaire shortbread, rocky road and more. My wednesdays see me take myself away from the cafe and dedicate 9 hours of my day cooking 35 cakes for the cafe as well as a selection of treats to tempt the summer visitors to Cromer. One of the treats i created was our 'Cake of the Week', a orange and almond cake with pistachio and crystalised rose petals. I am completely in love with this cake as it is beautiful to look at and incredibly flavoursome. As many of you have seen from my previous recipes i really love using pistachios in my baking and i will be posting the recipe for my cake very soon.

I once again delved into Dan lepard's 'Short and Sweet' recipe book and found a great recipe for a bread dough which he used to make pasties. By using tomato paste in the dough the colour of them was amazing once they were cooked and gave a great flavour often lost when overpowered with interesting fillings. I always think as much care should be taken with pastry and bread as taken with the ingredients you put with them. 

As you can see it has been an incredibly busy month for me, hence the large gap in my blog but i have an abundance of recipes from these experiences which i am looking forward to sharing with you all. Despite my culinary experiments this month, many who know me well would not say my creativity has been limited to my cooking, my creation of a jellyfish costume for the party using only a sombrero, scraps of material, newspaper and LED lights was pretty special. Not only did i subject my friend Liv to an obscene amount of cooking, i also forced her to look like a complete fool with me for a whole evening! 

Iberico Restaurant Review

All Images © www.ibericotapas.com

I have been to Iberico tapas a few times now, and I cannot recommend it enough! In the heart of Lace Market, it is easy to miss but it is somewhere that is definitely worth seeking out.  Situated in a beautiful grade II listed building, the restaurant has a wonderful relaxed atmosphere with a simple but welcoming interior.

The key to great Mediterranean food is simplicity and putting together good ingredients that taste and look great. Iberico boasts all the dishes commonly associated with Spanish cuisine such as; Potatas Bravas and Gambas a la plancha. However, differing from traditional tapas, Iberico uses a vast range of ingredients and international influences, elevating simple tapas into elegant and exciting dishes.

If you are vegetarian there is a great range of dishes including Goats cheese stuffed Piquillo Peppers with Spinach, Honey and Hazelnuts and Chestnut Cavallo Nero. Any good Spanish menu worth its weight always has a beautiful paella dish on its menu and Iberico’s certainly doesn’t fail to deliver. For fish lovers I would also recommend the Hake with Green Olive and Lemon Salsa as well as the Scallop with butternut, orange and chorizo jam.  However, my favourite dishes have to be the slow cooked lamb rump with spiced aubergine, yoghurt and mint and the crispy pork belly with celeriac and rhubarb.  Iberico also offers amazing charcuterie and cheese boards with a range of delicious homemade breads. If you are able to manage a desert the churros with chocolate sauce are the perfect way to finish your meal!

The price range of each of these dishes is from £5-£7 but if this seems a little pricey there is an express lunch offer between 12pm and 2pm, Monday to Friday for £11.95. For this you get, Catalan bread, 2 tapas dishes and dessert. The portions of each dish are a good size and you easily get your moneys worth in the quality and quantity of the food. For those of you looking for a big hearty meal this is possibly not the place for you. This place is perfect for groups of friends looking to try something different and is a prime example of the wonderful independent restaurants Nottingham has to offer. They are open everyday apart from Sunday offering lunch service between 12pm and 2pm. They have evening service between 5.30pm and 10pm Monday to Friday and 6.00pm to 10pm on a Saturday. I would recommend booking before hand, as this place gets busy!

For more information visit Iberico’s website: http://www.ibericotapas.com/.

Black Chipotle Sharing Bread

This is my first post in a little while as i am approaching the end of my degree and as a result my baking has been horribly neglected. Yesterday marked another day when i was able to rid myself of a few more  essays and this has meant i was able to reward myself with the free time to make some delicious bread. At christmas i was given the Dan Lepard's 'Short and Sweet: The best of home baking', for anyone looking for a new baking book, this one comes with my highest recommendation! The recipe for Black Bread has been on my to-do-list for quite a while and i hope my take on it will inspire you to give it a go. Easter is around the corner and sadly i am not a lover of hot cross buns which seem to be the staple food of British bakes for Easter. For those of you like me who fancy something a bit different, i have used Lepard's recipe with amazing dried chipotle chilies and constructed it into something worthy of any Easter table. 

Dan Lepard has created his recipe as a loaf without any chili, however, my Black Chipotle Bread is plaited and covered with dried chili seeds and cooked around a terracotta dish. Inside i have pickled some jalepeno chilis and lightly battered them and rolled them in spicy seasoning. I have also made a chili oil and filled my terracotta dish with seranno ham and Manchego cheese. To decorate, i laid fresh corriander and parsley around my dish along with a few red fresh chilis. What i am going to show you is how to make the bread and the chili oil, you can fill your dish with anything you like, i am sure many of you will be more creative than me!

For your bread you will need:

325ml of cold water

150g Rye ( if not use a good whole meal flour, this works just as well)

2 teaspoons of fast action yeast

1 teaspoon of muscovado sugar

2 tablespoons of cocoa powder

2 tablespoons of instant coffee granules

75g black treacle

425g of strong white flour

3 teaspoons of fennel seeds

50g unsalted butter

150g grated carrot

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

1 dried chipotle chili ( i found mine from www.loveyourlarder.com)

dried chili flakes

1 terracotta dish (mine measures 11cm in width)

For your chili oil you will need:

4 Whole fresh red birdseye chilies 

1 bunch of fresh parsley

1 bunch of fresh corriander

2 cloves of garlic

250ml olive oil

3 cherry tomatoes

3 star anise 

1 smaller decorative dish

1. whisk 225ml of the cold water with 50g of rye in a saucepan and bring to the boil and then spoon into a bowl until luke warm. Then stir in your yeast and sugar and leave covered at room temperature for 45 minutes.

2. Heat the remaining 100ml of cold water with the cocoa, coffee, treacle, fennel seeds, finely chopped chipotle and butter until melted, leave until luke warm and then stir with the grated carrot and mix everything into your yeast mixture. 

3. Add to this the remaining rye, white flour and salt and stir until the mixture forms a soft sticky mass. Rub 1 tablespoon of oil onto the work surface and your hands and knead the dough, repeat this twice at 10 minute intervals.

4. Now divide your mixture into four long sausage shapes until they are all 1.5 times the circumference of your terracotta bowl, each in length. Place your terracotta bowl in the center of an oiled baking tray, plait your four pieces of dough together and place the one long plait around the outside of your terracotta bowl. Brush the top of the dough with water and sprinkle on your dried chili flakes and slip the baking tray inside a carrier bag and leave it until it is increased in size by half.

5. Now remove the plastic bag and place your baking tray into a preheated oven of 200° for 20 minutes. To get a good crust i always place a baking tray of cold water on the bottom shelf of my oven. The steam created when the water is heated always creates a good crust for your bread. After 20 minutes reduce the temperature to 180° for a further 15 minutes. Now leave your bread to cool and you can begin making your chili oil.

6. To make your chili oil chop all of your fresh ingredients finely and with the oil and star anise place into a saucepan on a medium heat for 5 minutes. By heating the ingredients it allows a greater flavour for your oil. Once taken off the heat, place in a small decorative bowl to put in the center of your terracotta dish.

7. The fun bit is deciding what you would like to put into your dish and how you would like to decorate it. Because the bread is dark and smokey in taste, i opted for spanish and mexican ingredients but i encourage you to be really creative with your dishes as this can look really beautiful and makes a great sharing dish for family and friends. 

If anyone has a go at this recipe i would love to hear from you so please send me pictures or get in touch, as you can see this went down a storm with my flat mates!

Chocolate and Toffee Marathon Cake

I recently got asked to make a cake for a charity event and was more than happy to put my baking mitts on for a good cause. Two girls are running the London marathon to raise money for PhabKids charity who promote and encourage people with and without physical disabilities to come together on equal terms.

If i was more skilled in the art of sugar paste i had ideas of grandeur and wanted to create a cake with a running track but instead created an athletes nightmare in the form of the world's most unhealthy cake. I have created a 4 layer cake with  2 x chocolate sponges and 2 x sticky toffee pudding sponges with toffee and chocolate fudge buttercream... as i said nice and light!


To make your chocolate sponges you will need:
6 eggs (seperated)
100g cocoa powder
100g melted unsalted butter
85g muscavado sugar
2-3 tbsp milk
150g melted dark chocolate (70% cocoa or more)

To make your toffee sponges:
180g stoned medjool dates
250ml of black tea
1/2 tsp baking powder
85g unsalted butter
180g Self raising flour
1/2 tsp of mixed spice
180g golden sugar
2 eggs beaten

For your Sticky Toffee Sauce ( you will need half for your butter icing):
150ml double cream
100g golden caster sugar
100g unsalted butter

Chocolate Fudge Icing:
100g dark chocolate
50g unsalted butter
200g icing sugar

Toffee Icing:
250g unsalted butter
400g icing sugar
half of your sticky toffee sauce

1. To make your Chocolate sponges seperate your eggs and to your yolks add your cocoa powder and melted dark chocolate and melted butter and put to one side. Whisk up your egg whites until light and fluffy and then slowly add your muscavado sugar until the mixture forms stiff peaks. Gently fold in your chocolate mixture into the egg whites and when folded in half your mixture and put it into two greased and lined victoria sponge tins. Place into a pre-heated oven at 160° for 30 minutes.

2. In the meantime you can make your toffee sponges. Place your dates and tea into a saucepan on a medium heat with the 1/2 tsp of baking powder for 4 minutes. In a mixing bowl cream your sugar and butter and then slowly whisk in your mixed spice flour and eggs. Finally whisk in your date mixture and half the mixture and pour each half into a greased and lined victoria sandwich tin. Bake these for 20 minutes at 160°.

3. Leave all your cakes to cool for half an hour. Once cooled make your sticky toffee sauce by melting your cream, butter and golden caster sugar together. Prick all of your sponges and pour over the toffee sauce to let the sponges absorb the sauce.

4. To make your toffee butter cream, cream together your butter and icing sugar and then whisk in the other half of your toffee sauce once it is cooled. Now layer your cake with Chocolate sponge, a layer of butter cream, toffee sponge, a layer of butter cream and repeat this with your two other sponges. On the top layer do not cover with butter cream.

5. Put this in the fridge to let the butter cream firm up. In the meantime you can make the chocolate fudge icing. Melt your chocolate and mix this into creamed butter and icing sugar. Thinly spread this over the entire cake so it is completely covered, the neater the better. 

6. You can decorate this however you wish, I chose to cover it in my favourite chocolate bars and then drizzled white chocolate over the top! This is a slightly time consuming recipe but for special occasions and worthy causes it is worth taking the time as it looks great! 

For more information on the charity Hannah and Ellie were raising money for, Phab Kids website: http://www.phabkids.co.uk/